


Forgiven

by Enfilade



Series: Mend What is Broken [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alcohol, Blood Kink, Developing Relationship, Drinking, Drinking Games, Drug Addiction, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Rape, Mindfuck, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Violence, Requited Love, Robots, Second Chances, Swords, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-30 04:51:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enfilade/pseuds/Enfilade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whirl might be the one responsible for spiking the drinks with Syk, but Ratchet’s the one who ends up going to sleep, intoxicated, in Drift’s berth—and waking up next to Deadlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Night Train

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Sequel to "In Repair."
> 
> Tags make the fic sound worse than it is, but better safe than sorry. 
> 
> The fic's named for a clip from a song by a Christian band; that's not my faith, and there's no human religion in the story whatsoever, but it's a great song, and the lyrics fit the tone I was aiming for.
> 
> My shipping philosophy is “Ship it if it makes you happy.” Just because a pairing’s not to my taste doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong if you happen to like it. That being said, I noticed that this fic points out some of the reasons I don’t care for Drift/Rodimus, and if you like that pairing, please don’t consider it an insinuation that you shouldn't. There's lots of room for everyone to enjoy what floats their boat...erm, ship.
> 
> And thanks again to my fellow fic authors for the lovely entertainment :)

_'Cause we're all guilty of the same things_  
 _We think the thoughts whether or not we see them through_  
 _And I know that I have been forgiven_  
 _And I just hope you can forgive me too_

\--Relient K, “Forgiven”

* 

**Forgiven**  


Chapter One: Night Train

_I'm on the night train, bottoms up_  
 _I'm on the night train, fill my cup_  
 _I'm on the night train_  
 _Ready to crash and burn,_

_I never learn_

\--Guns ‘n Roses, “Night Train”

*

“You’re on duty,” Ratchet said, formally handing over command of the med bay to First Aid. 

“First Aid, on duty,” the younger doctor replied.

Relieved of command, Ratchet ground his knuckles into his optic sockets, trying to relieve some of the pressure and tension and agitation that had been weighing on him ever since the _Lost Light_ had left Hedonia. The night of a certain interlude with a certain sword-carrying third-in-command. 

“Um, Ratchet?”

Ratchet moved his hands away from his optics to see Ambulon blocking his way out of the med bay. “What do you want?”

“Erm…” The former Decepticon shuffled his foot nervously. “We…that is, me and First Aid…we were wondering if….” His optics swung to First Aid, begging for assistance.

“If you needed some help,” First Aid said.

Ratchet looked between the two, blankly, trying to figure out what they meant.

“Erm,” Ambulon added, “letting off some steam.”

_Oh._

Yes, rumour had it that medics tended to keep to their own kind. And yes, Ratchet had been on edge for the past week. That night on Hedonia…

He was trying to pretend it didn’t happen. And, evidently, doing a miserable job of it. First Aid and Ambulon had clearly picked up on his mood.

But it wasn’t anything either of those two could fix.

“That’s generous of you two,” Ratchet gritted, “but no, nothing you can help with. Thanks anyway.”

First Aid appeared skeptical, but Ambulon looked relieved. Ratchet wondered if the ex-Con could sense the coding Bludgeon had forcibly wired into his systems long ago, back when he’d been taken prisoner. The coding that was the reason why he’d never bothered finding another partner after his relationship with Pharma fell apart.

…Or maybe Ambulon was just remembering being cooped up on Delphi with Pharma. Medics keep to their own kind, after all…

Ratchet imagined Pharma amusing himself with Ambulon…or First Aid…or both together…and discovered to his surprise that the idea evoked no emotion at all. No anger. No jealousy. No nausea. Just a simple acceptance.

“You two have fun,” Ratchet said, “I’m going out.”

From the corner of his optics he saw the two junior medics exchange big grins. For a moment he was tempted to remind First Aid that he was on duty—not to get so busy entertaining Ambulon that he forgot to do his job. At the last moment, Ratchet bit down the words. First Aid was going to be his successor. He had to trust First Aid to be mature enough to handle the responsibility.

Ratchet let the med bay door shut behind him, and left them to their fun.

*

Ratchet found himself setting a course for Swerve’s without ever consciously deciding to do so. The decision made sense—Swerve’s bar was an appropriate place to socialize with his fellow Autobots and get to know them outside of the med bay—but Ratchet really wasn’t in a mood to be chatty tonight. He also wasn’t sure if it was smart to curl up in the corner with a mug of high-test and think about…

A voice carried down the corridor. 

_Drift._

Against his better judgment, Ratchet followed the sound of the voice, peeping through the door of the captain’s office. Inside, Drift was instructing Rodimus on the finer points of swordsmanship; the red-painted bot held one of Drift’s blades in each hand while Drift himself circled his captain and corrected his forms. Ratchet knew the captain had been taking lessons. 

So why did Ratchet gasp when he saw Drift’s hand curled around Rodimus’ upper arm, guiding him into position? Why did it feel as though a large hand had clenched Ratchet’s spark and started squeezing the life out of it? 

Rodimus laughed and took a half-step backwards, pressing his back into Drift’s chest and flashing that killer smile that had won the hearts of the _Lost Light_ ’s crew…

Unbidden, Ratchet’s imagination conjured up the image of the two speedsters twined around one another in the berth, all sleek fenders and hot engines and roving hands. Fury roared through his spark, fury and pain and rage and a lust for spilled fuel. It was physically painful to tear his optics and thoughts away, to force himself to continue down the hall.

Bludgeon’s tinkering was fully evident, four million years later. 

_This was why_ , Ratchet thought, _that night on Hedonia was a mistake._ He’d been able to control the un-Autobot thoughts and vicious urges by keeping himself celibate, alone. Just one night cuddled up to Drift— _we didn’t even take off our armour, damn it_ —was enough to activate the coding and send it slamming at the walls of Ratchet’s mind. Well, Ratchet knew better now. He wouldn’t stoke those dark flames. He’d leave Drift to Rodimus and he’d…he’d…

He’d head to Swerve’s and get himself absolutely _fendered_ tonight.

*

When Ratchet arrived at Swerve’s, the place was packed and a drinking game was in full swing. The name of the game was “Truth or Drink,” and the rules were straightforward: answer the uestion of the evening, or drink the concoction that got placed in front of you. Ratchet eased himself into a chair, ignoring the voice in his mind telling him he was too old for this game. 

Ratchet caught sight of Rung out of the corner of his optic, sitting at a table in the corner and looking inconspicuous as ever. He could only imagine what the psychologist was thinking about the evening’s activities: probably a theory that Truth or Drink provided an outlet for the Autobots to share with one another about topics ordinarily taboo. The last time he was here, the question of the evening had been “do you know the name of the first mech you killed.” That was probably why so many of the topics had to do with emotions and war and…

Ratchet’s train of thought was interrupted when Swerve climbed up on a barstool, grabbed a megaphone – who in the Pit had thought it was a good idea to give him free access to one of those? – and announced, at the audio-distorting volume, that the Question of the Evening (pronounced in such a way as to imply capitalization) was…. “Who was the last mech you interfaced with?”

Ratchet blinked. Or that. 

Yes, there were a lot of questions about that sort of thing too—mostly mechs just being nosy, sticking their fenders into other people’s business—and…

_Slag me in the smelter._

Swerve flipped the megaphone over and handed it to Hoist. As Hoist gave his reply – no surprise there, those two shared a hab suite – Ratchet tried to convince himself that for all he knew, First Aid had already told the whole ship that the Chief Medical Officer had once had a thing with Pharma. 

_Nobody’s going to be surprised. They all know medics keep to their own kind. They all know Pharma used to be a good Autobot. Everyone else is answering. It’s not such a big deal…_

Ratchet had just about talked himself into spitting out Pharma’s name and being done with it when events caused him to think twice.

“Hasn’t he been dead for, what, a couple thousand years?” Sunstreaker’s voice was very loud, and it carried.

Grapple looked at the ground and muttered something. 

It was almost sweet how quickly Atomizer grabbed the megaphone and announced the esteemed ship’s captain’s name at full volume. An argument quickly broke out, some mechs insisting that Atomizer was lying, others coming to his defense, and Grapple’s long dry spell was forgotten in the commotion. Grapple leaned back in his chair, chugging his drink for additional courage. 

Ratchet found himself doubting the wisdom of opening his mouth all over again. A reaction, like that, for a couple thousand years of solitude. Ratchet’s last relationship had ended _in the early centuries of the war_. He was never going to live down four million years alone, and sooner or later, some curious mech would start asking _why_.

Ratchet would still rather die than answer that question.

Best if nobody thought to wonder.

Still, the sight of Whirl humming to himself and lovingly stirring a virulent magenta pitcher of unknown ingredients made Ratchet reconsider his decision all over again.

Ratchet hoped that Whirl intended to drink that concoction himself. The medic braced his arms on the table and stood, pretending to casually survey the bar while his optics sought out…

…Pipes.

Yes, Pipes was in the corner with Hound and Xaaron, and there was no way in the Pit that Ratchet was going to answer the Question of the Evening tonight. Done. Decided. Ratchet was not looking Pipes in the optics and confessing that his last romantic partner had been the engineer of the plague that almost killed poor Pipes. 

…And Drift. Briefly, Ratchet wondered what might have happened that night they’d been in orbit around Hedonia if he’d only been less of a prude.

At the next table over, Blaster had just given his answer, and the bar erupted with hooting and hollering. Ratchet had not heard the name Blaster had given; he’d been too lost in his thoughts.

Swerve turned to Ratchet. The medic could have sworn the volume on the megaphone jumped as Swerve announced, “How about our Chief Medical Officer?”

Ratchet took a deep breath into his air intakes and pointed at his glass. “Hit me,” Ratchet said.

Silence fell over Swerve’s bar. Skids was the first to break it; he raised an eye ridge as he accepted the ominously glowing pitcher from Whirl and crossed the floor with it. “You sure?” Skids asked as he held the fluid suspended over Ratchet’s cup. “Whirl’s been giggling over this thing all night.”

Which meant that drinking it was officially a Bad Idea, but Ratchet saw no way out of this situation. Across the bar, Pipes was frowning at him, and Delphi wasn’t that long ago…not nearly enough in the past for Ratchet to answer the question honestly. So Ratchet steeled his tanks and nodded.

A series of catcalls echoed through the bar, as was typical when some mech took the so-called “easy way out.” Ratchet turned off his olfactory receptors as Skids shook his head and poured out a single serving of Whirl’s Drink-of-Doom. The medic stared down at the heinous-looking beverage and tried not to think of the scolding he’d give any Autobot who came to his med bay after willingly consuming something like that.

“Hey, hey…shut up!” A loud voice spoke from somewhere behind Ratchet’s shoulder. The jeering Autobots fell silent. Ratchet twisted to see who was speaking.

The chair next to him slid backwards. A sleek, white figure stepped forward, bracing his hands against the table. “You loudmouths ought to consider that maybe our Chief Medical Officer isn’t scared. Maybe he’s too much of a gentlemech to kiss and tell.” Drift placed a hand over his fuel pump dramatically and announced, “He should be an example to us all.”

Ratchet narrowed his optics, not entirely convinced that Drift wasn’t making fun of him.

“So,” the white swordsmech continued, “to that end, I will follow Ratchet’s shining example.” He dropped into the chair and gestured to Skids. “Hit me.”

Skids raised his other eye ridge. “Your funeral,” he said at last and provided Drift with a glass of his own.

Behind the bar, Whirl was staring at Ratchet and Drift and sniggering. Loudly. Ratchet really didn’t want to think about the source of Whirl’s amusement. He averted his eyes and found himself staring at Drift instead.

Drift flashed Ratchet a roguish grin and raised his glass. “Cheers.”

Ratchet had no idea what Drift was up to, but any attempt to figure it out led his thoughts down pathways he wasn’t prepared to follow. Delphi: a rust-streaked figure with a shining blade, Pharma’s scream, two hands lying disembodied on the roof. The Metrotitan: religion and logic locked in combat, until faith reaches for a weapon to defend itself. Hedonia: that incident in the medbay that was, was, what had they done that night? The medical texts would call it _petting_ —embarrassing in how little actually happened, considering that their armour was still on, and yet Ratchet wondered whether the nature of the activity was truly the best measure of the intimacy involved….

_Not thinking about it._ He had gotten through the first agonizing days, and all the days since, by pretending that nothing of consequence had happened, and Drift had appeared to be doing the same. Until tonight. There was something not quite right about Drift tonight.

_He’d better not be making fun of me_ , Ratchet thought with a snort as he looked into Drift’s sparkling optics, clinked his glass against Drift’s, and threw back his head in the hopes that one fast swallow was the best way to down the noxious beverage.

Ugh, it burned, filling his mouth with a smoky taste and causing his throat to spasm. Ratchet reactivated his olfactory sensors just to make sure nothing was really on fire and immediately regretted it as the stink of the beverage flooded his nose. It was all he could do not to cough; bad enough if anyone at the bar noticed that his air intakes were straining. He slammed the glass down on the bar crookedly, and it spun sideways and crashed into Drift’s.

Drift, meanwhile, was sporting a big slag-sucking grin, as though he could ask Skids for another—or maybe the whole pitcher. 

Swerve continued, “Since you’ve got that pitcher there, Skids, how about your answer?”

Skids shrugged. “Who I last interfaced with? Haven’t a clue.”

Several Autobots began pounding their tables and demanding that Skids drink.

“Hey, hey!” Skids raised his voice. “Not knowing the answer isn’t the same as saying I won’t tell you.”

“He’s got you there,” Swerve admitted, and someone in the bar got up and booed loudly, but Ratchet had no idea who it was, because suddenly his optics refused to focus properly.

“Whooooa….slag,” Drift said quietly. So quietly Ratchet might have been the only one to hear. 

Strange how Ratchet felt as though he were being punched in the face by the intensity of smells and sounds, but he could barely see. Some of his senses were dialed way up, while others were muted. He couldn’t feel his feet. The room seemed to be revolving around a mysterious axis, and its rotation disoriented him. He pressed his back into his chair to give himself a frame of reference for which way was up. Time dilated; Ratchet had no idea how long he sat that way. It could have been breems. Or orns.

Drift placed a rough and clumsy hand on Ratchet’s shoulder and leaned close. So close that even Ratchet’s unfocused optics could see the grim expression on his face.

“Game over.”

Ratchet figured he ought to feel threatened, but he couldn’t manage a proper emotional response. His head was revolving merrily, and his spark sang with the irrelevance of consequences. He wasn’t sure whether Drift’s words were a threat or a warning or what, and he could not summon up the wherewithal to care.

“I said, the game’s over.” Drift gestured around the bar. The crowd was dispersing; some mechs were leaving, while others were arranging themselves around the game tables or in small groups, talking and laughing. “We should go.”

Funny. Ratchet didn’t even remember who else had answered the Question of the Evening after he and Drift had taken their drinks. He’d been too busy trying to focus on staying upright.

“What’s this _we_?” Ratchet groused.

“’Cause if I leave, you’ll fall over.” Drift grinned.

Ratchet sat bolt upright. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d started leaning against Drift. Heavily. And no sooner was he sitting unaided than the world tilted to the left and entered a nasty spiral dive.

Ratchet groaned.

“Hey, you mad at me?” Drift asked.

“I haven’t seen you in the med bay this week,” Ratchet gritted, annoyed that Drift had come by on Hedonia, gotten what he apparently wanted, and then made himself scarce. “Or anywhere else.”

“You haven’t seen me anywhere else because you haven’t left the med bay all week,” Drift replied. “And do you really want me coming around there when I’m not injured? I’ve been walking the hall outside your door, but I guess you didn’t want company.”

Ratchet’s optics flickered. Had he really…well, come to think of it, yes, he _had_ been going back and forth from his hab suite to the med bay via the door that connected the two, never once setting foot in the hall to go anywhere else, until tonight. He’d spent the whole week in the med bay like a hermit feeling angry at Drift for taking off…never guessing Drift might have been trying to give him some space, and waiting for him to reach out.

“I thought you’d…I suppose I should have…urr.” Ratchet groaned again. “I don’t feel so great.”

“Yeah, this sucks, and it’s just you and me for it.”

“For what?” Ratchet panted, resting his head against the cool tabletop and waiting for the world to stop rotating.

“Nobody else drank Whirl’s stupid Drink of Doom. Come on, you’ll feel a lot better lying down.”

Ratchet doubted he could get back to his quarters alone and wasn’t about to humiliate himself by asking for help. Drift didn’t wait to be asked. He wrapped his arm across Ratchet’s back and stood up, hauling Ratchet to his feet as he did so.

Ratchet struggled to keep his eyes focused, and maybe it was wishful thinking, but if anyone else in Swerve’s noticed the state he was in, they gave no sign of it.


	2. Chemical Freeway

_Lose my head to the chemical freeway_  
 _Comin’ up on overload_  
 _In a mystic new dimension_  
 _Purify and sanctify me_

\--Electrasy, “Cosmic Castaway”

  


Ratchet was so busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and not knocking Drift over that he was startled when he found a door opening in front of him. He stepped through it, and although the world was spinning quickly enough to blur his vision, he knew that he wasn’t in his own hab suite. The smell was wrong—his hab suite was next door to the medbay, and always smelled of disinfectant and oil. This place carried the heavy fragrance of incense, and the dim lighting was a strong contrast to the re-purposed clinical lamps that lit Ratchet’s sleeping quarters.

Ratchet adjusted his optics until his surroundings came into momentary focus. The suite was relatively large for the Lost Light, but also mostly empty, unlike Ratchet’s constantly cluttered room. A double-sized recharge bed stood against the far wall. Next to it was an end table, and beside the table, some sort of altar, then a rack for a trio of swords…

Ratchet had never been in this room before, but it wasn’t hard to guess where he was. He turned his head to Drift, then dimmed his optics to block out the nauseating sensation of motion caused by blurred vision. “Why are we in your quarters?”

“Yours are at the other end of the ship,” Drift replied, his tone calm and reasonable. “No way you’d make it.”

Ratchet took a step forward and almost stumbled; Drift hauled on him to keep him upright. Perhaps the other mech had a point. Ratchet didn’t want Rodimus to see him like this. Or Ultra Magnus—he’d probably be arrested on the spot. Or the other medics—how would he get First Aid and Ambulon to respect him if he staggered back like this? Ugh, especially if they were still “burning off steam.” Honestly, Ratchet didn’t want anyone to see him like this.

“Come over here, lie down, and think about how you’re gonna kill Whirl tomorrow.” 

Ratchet let Drift guide him over to the berth. Drift supported him while he sat, then slowly eased his legs up and his head down. The fuel in his tank sloshed around unpleasantly.

Drift, that smug fragger, seemed to be just fine. He circled the bunk and hopped onto the foot, moving up between Ratchet and the wall until he was lying next to the medic on his back. Ratchet snorted at Drift’s presumption; he was about to roll over and tell Drift not to be expecting another night like Hedonia when another spinning wave of vertigo knocked the thought from his mind.

“Ugh,” Ratchet groaned instead, “what was in that stuff?”

Drift folded his hands behind his head, looked up at the ceiling, and answered matter-of-factly, “Syk.”

Ratchet lifted his head from the pillow, certain he had misheard. “What?”

Drift tilted his head and locked optics with Ratchet. “I said Whirl spiked the damned drinks with Syk.” 

Ratchet’s intakes flared, sucking air into his systems. It was one thing to read medical files about the effects of Syk, and quite another to experience those effects from the inside, as it were. Dry medical terminology like “vertigo” and “visual hallucinations” and “temporary memory loss” didn’t adequately describe the sensation of feeling as though he’d been stuffed inside a cosmic blender set to puree, or the way the world looked like water-soluble paint after a rainstorm, viewed through a pane of thick, blurry plasteel. 

Another thought came to him. Syk was illegal. For a reason. His hands clenched into fists as he tried to slow his suddenly racing fuel pump. _Think about this logically. You saw plenty of Syk addicts in your old drop-in clinic back on Cybertron. Countermeasures have their own consequences and aren’t worth it unless the dose is high. If it’s a low-grade dose, the best thing to do is just sleep it off._

Only how could he tell how much he’d ingested? What was he supposed to do—stagger down to the medbay and try to test himself in the state he was in? Try to explain to First Aid and Ambulon why the Chief Medical Officer was drunk and high? 

_Whirl wouldn’t put an overdose in that pitcher. Because he…he’d get kicked off the ship if he killed anybody. Right?_

_…If I’m trusting Whirl, I’ve got to be high._

Ratchet hadn’t realized he was overventilating until he felt a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. Drift. 

“Ratchet. Look at me.”

Ratchet struggled to focus his optics.

“You’re gonna be okay, all right?”

Ratchet snorted. “You’ve got some kind of medical training to support that statement?”

Drift’s voice was flat. “No, I’ve got a few centuries’ history in the Dead End watching friends, acquaintances and strangers boil their brains on every substance known to modern science. So, yeah. It’s going to get more intense before it starts to fade, and there’s the memory-loss phase in the middle, but you’re going to be fine in the morning. Maybe a little sore, maybe a little dizzy, but fine.” 

Ratchet believed him. He took a slow, deep inhalation through his intakes. 

“It’s not even enough to make a systems purge worth it. You’re a doctor, you know how it is. Systems purge is for an overdose. A little hit like this…barely a taste, really…the systems purge will make you sicker than the Syk will.”

Ratchet nodded; this was all true. Drift ought to know how big the dose was, and Ratchet trusted him. He was going to be sick and angry in the morning, but he was going to survive this.

Then another thought occurred to him. “Are you okay?”

Because Syk was addictive. A one-time exposure like Ratchet’s would simply result in a wild night, a lousy morning and a memory of an experience not to be repeated. But to someone who had a history of Syk use…a craving that only intensified the more times the drug was taken…

“Now. Yeah. Tomorrow? Likely not.” Ratchet guessed the other mech was trying to keep his expression neutral, but the medic could hear the tension in the speedster’s voice. “The dose is so small, it’s not really doing a lot for me at the moment.”

Ratchet could read the implication left unvoiced. Because Drift had been used to using a lot more. He’d quit, of course, and he’d stayed clean—testing had been mandatory for the crew at Red Alert’s insistence—but this exposure was going to open up those old cravings all over again. Ratchet felt an unfamiliar fury smouldering in his spark. What Whirl had done to him was inappropriate; what he’d done to Drift had been a violation. 

Before Ratchet could articulate those sentiments, Drift spoke. “Primus damn it, Ratchet,” Drift growled. “It almost killed me to give it up, you know that? I…what if I…”

 _He was scared_.

Ratchet wouldn’t force him to say the words. He reached up, ran his hand down the side of Drift’s face. “I’ll take care of you.”

Drift cut off in mid-stammer, stared Ratchet in the optics and held his gaze. Then, accepting, he lay down next to Ratchet and dimmed his optics. 

_Yes. Go to sleep_. Good advice for both of them. Ratchet settled himself on his back, tried to ignore the way the world spun every time he moved his head, and concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly. What in the world possessed mechanisms to do this to themselves—to make themselves feel this way on purpose? Ratchet couldn’t imagine a more miserable way to spend his free time.

Though the berth was awfully comfortable.

Very, very comfortable. Ratchet shifted his shoulders, settling in to the kind of berth he’d describe as the type offered in nice hotels. His own bunk in his private quarters was supportive, and conductive to self-repair, and pleasant enough, but this berth was downright luxurious. Given the Spartan nature of the rest of the room, it was a strange indulgence.

Ratchet doubted he would ever make any sense of Drift’s idiosyncracies.

Ratchet sighed. He didn’t feel so bad, lying here, riding the sensation of floating in mid-air, but he knew that if he tried to get up, the ship would start spinning again. He also wasn’t anywhere near tired enough to sleep. What did mechanisms do when they were high? “I’m not tired enough to sleep this off,” Ratchet grumbled.

“Yeah, me either,” came the voice beside him. 

Ratchet had almost forgotten that Drift was there. Now he couldn’t stop holding his breath and waiting—for what?—as Drift carefully raised his arms and interlaced his fingers behind his head. 

“If I’d known this would happen,” Drift said, “I would have painted the ceiling. Stars, maybe.”

“Stars.” The idea struck Ratchet as ridiculous, in an amusing sort of way, and he couldn’t help chuckling.

“Yeah.” Drift’s voice was serious, and oddly soft. Ratchet broke off his laughter to listen more closely. “Something I used to do back in Rodion. There was this…I guess it used to be fancy apartments, or maybe a hotel. There’d been a fire, and half the complex was destroyed, but there was this one part of it that was…I mean, it was abandoned, and showing its age, but it was still pretty nice inside. Nicer than anything else in the Dead End, anyway. There was a fence around it to keep mechs out, but I found a way in through the underground, and we used to go there. Me and a friend. We dragged one of the berths out under a hole in the ceiling and we’d pop Syk and lie there and look up at the stars.” He dragged in a ragged breath. “You get high, you could stare at them for hours. Watch the moon rise and set, like all nature was putting on a show and you had front row seats. If we were really lucky, Syk would blow a hole through all the stuff we wished we could forget. We’d lose our history and for one night life was beautiful.”

Ratchet barely dared to breathe at all. Drift never talked about his life in the Dead End, not that Ratchet had heard anyway. The medic dared a glance at his companion. Drift’s expression was almost wistful as he looked up at the shadowed ceiling.

Drift seemed to sense the weight of Ratchet’s gaze, because his expression changed to one of guilt as he said quietly, “I know it was bad for us. But…do you understand? For those few hours we felt…good. Happy to be alive.” 

Ratchet disliked the word _revelation—_ he was uncomfortable with the religious connotations—but he had no other way to describe the way he felt about the realization that flared to life in his brain. He’d been forged a medic; his unique gifts had suited him to a career that guaranteed stability, employment, a place in society, a measure of respect. He’d felt empathy for all forms of life, but empathy did not preclude a creeping sense of superiority. Particularly over mechanisms who deliberately sought self-harm, knowing the consequences.

Ratchet had never had to face life in a world where quiet oblivion was the kindest of all possible outcomes. Ratchet had always fought against death, struggling to save lives, under the presumption those lives were worth living. Was it fair for him to send a mech back to an existence where the best that could be hoped for was a night under the stars on the roof of a ruined housing complex, pretending to be anything other than what he was?

So Drift was flaky and reckless and eager to please? It was no small wonder Drift wasn’t _mad_.

And yet a slow worm of envy cut its way through Ratchet’s epiphany.

“This friend of yours,” Ratchet started, “was he…”

“Gasket.” Drift offered up the name without hesitating. “He was probably the second guy to be nice to me…y’know, after you. I was suspicious of him for a long time. Then I was…well…jealous. Gasket was nice to a lot of people. He brought us together, kept us alive.” His optics returned to the ceiling. “Part of me wanted to keep him to myself.”

“You lovers?”

Ratchet was shocked at the question that burst out of his mouth. Syk apparently made you say what was on your mind.

Drift either didn’t notice the bluntness of the question or didn’t care. “No. Yes. Complicated.”

Complicated…like they were? “Were you ‘facing him or not?”

“Couldn’t.” 

Ratchet raised an eye ridge.

Drift half-rolled to face it. “You’re a doctor, you know how it works. You take enough damage, you don’t have the physical ability to.”

“You?” 

“Him. I would have hurt him, if I’d tried. So, didn’t try.” Drift tried to shrug, but the old pain glittered in the corner of his optics.

“No money for repairs.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

“He was a better thief than a buymech anyways.” Drift managed a half-smile. “Old joke of his.”

Ratchet had his suspicions that Drift had been both, and the white speedster was in a mood to answer, but Ratchet realized that he didn’t feel any need to ask. What was Drift to have done – laid down and died to avoid offending the morality of the better-fueled? No, Ratchet no longer cared how Drift had kept himself alive in the gutters. He had no right to judge when he could not imagine what he would have done in Drift’s place.

“But you cared about him, and he cared about you.”

A pause. “Yes.”

“I’d call that lovers.” Ratchet rolled onto his back to avoid the question of where the line existed for him and Drift right now. 

“He’s dead now.” Drift confirmed what Ratchet already suspected. “I still miss him.”

And part of Ratchet—that cold, cruel, transplanted part—was glad, because it didn’t want to share, but most of Ratchet was sorry and meant it when he said so. Drift gripped Ratchet’s hand gratefully.

“I…they killed him, Ratch. I took it badly.”

Ratchet pressed his jaw closed and stroked Drift as the white speedster rolled his chest against Ratchet’s.

“It’s when I found out I had a talent for…well. I’d never killed anyone before. Not even to refuel.”

Ratchet felt the shock pulse through his systems at those words. Ratchet had always presumed that Drift had made his first kill after he’d gone mercenary—after he’d chosen to improve his life by taking the lives of others. He’d never imagined that Drift’s first kill had been driven by grief, or perhaps earlier still, perhaps one last desperate attempt to save his friend. It was strangely reassuring to know, and Ratchet nestled closer to the swordsmech and brushed his lips over Drift’s cheek.

“I’m sorry,” Drift said, his optics glittering in the dark, and Ratchet knew he was apologizing for all the mechs he’d injured who’d wound up on Ratchet’s repair slab, and all those he’d sent to Ratchet’s colleagues, and all those who hadn’t survived to be repaired.

And Ratchet didn’t know what to say, because nothing Drift could say or do now would make it better, but he found he could no longer hold it against Drift either. The white speedster had just been trying to stay alive and find a place for himself in the universe. It occurred to Ratchet that if Prime or, hell, any one of the Autobots had bothered to help Drift get a career or even a place to belong, he wouldn’t have listened when Megatron came calling. But they didn’t, and then the Decepticons noticed him and recruited him to their side.

It wasn’t Drift’s failing. It was the Autobots’.

“I wish,” Ratchet said, “I wish I’d have walked you down to the Functionalist Council and helped you get a job.”

“You were busy, and tired,” Drift said, “and let’s be honest. I was already pretty good at being a leaker. I wasn’t interested in listening.” His hand tightened on Ratchet’s in the dark. 

For a few moments, the room revolved in lazy circles that, Ratchet realized, were no longer unpleasant. He felt a little giddy, as though he was young again, riding one of the carnival rides at Six Lasers over Cybertron. Drift’s voice floated out of the darkness. “I wonder sometimes what might’ve happened if I’d come back. To your clinic. To talk to you. I thought about it, over and over again…kept walking by.” 

Ratchet dared to roll onto his side. The room tilted, but not unbearably so; he put his hand under Drift’s jaw. “You didn’t walk by when we were in orbit around Hedonia.” 

Drift smiled. “Yeah, guess I finally found some courage.”


	3. The Perfect Disguise

Chapter 3: The Perfect Disguise

_Nightmares are somebody’s daydreams_

_Daydreams are somebody’s lies_

_Lies ain’t no harder than telling the truth_

_Truth is the perfect disguise._

_\--_ Kris Kristofferson, “Shandy”

It seemed perfectly natural when Ratchet’s nose brushed against Drift’s, right up until Ratchet realized how close they were to a kiss. Suddenly disoriented, Ratchet lost his nerve. He lowered his head, pressed his forehead crest against Drift’s. “I’m glad you were nearby in the bar tonight.” 

“I saw you in the hall…”

“Weren’t you busy with Rodimus?” Ratchet’s systems surged with jealousy, remembering the sight of red hands on sleek white curves.

“Nah, we were just about done our training session. I followed you to Swerve’s, and let me tell you, Ratch, I beelined for you the second I heard the Question of the Evening.”

Ratchet stiffened. “What the…You thought I was too much of a prude to even consider answering it?”

“There was no way you were giving an answer like that in front of Pipes.”

Ratchet had no idea his joints were physically capable of locking up even more tightly. It turned out that they were. “Do I want to ask what makes you think you know the answer?” 

“You talk in your sleep,” Drift blurted.

_Syk_ , Ratchet thought, _made everything slower_. For the longest time he couldn’t imagine how Drift would have known what he did in his sleep. He rested his cheek on the swordsmech’s shoulder while he thought about it. 

Drift’s hand curling over his waist provided a unique distraction. For long minutes, he breathed slowly and wondered if Drift would try to get his armour open. He tried to think of what he would say to dissuade him – _are you sure that’s a good idea, no need to be hasty_ – even as his frame quivered in the hopes that Drift would try, because Ratchet knew he would let him. In time, though, Ratchet felt the disappointed certainty that Drift wasn’t going to press his luck, and turned his attention back to the question at hand.

… _Smelt me down._

“That night in my quarters.” Ratchet’s plates burned with humiliation. “Please tell me I didn’t….”

“Yeah, you called me Pharma.”

Ratchet groaned and rolled onto his back again.

“So tell me,” Drift said, “when he’s not trying to, you know, cut under-the-table deals with the D.J.D. and kill us both to protect his reputation, what’s he like?”

Ratchet growled and turned over on his other side, facing away from Drift.

“No, seriously.” Drift sat up and put his hand on Ratchet’s upper shoulder. “It’s kind of blowing my mind to imagine a guy like that with you, so tell me what I’m missing.”

Ratchet let out a breath. He really didn’t like thinking about how his last relationship went wrong. “He wasn’t always like that,” Ratchet said slowly, softly. “He was…he was the most gifted medical student I’d ever seen. So talented. So eager to learn. I…”

Drift’s hand folded around Ratchet’s in the dark, and the Syk loosened the medic’s voxcoder. Ratchet gave in, returning to his back as he spoke. “I taught him his profession, and I tried not to get overly involved, but…well, I’m sure you’ve heard the rumours about medics.”

“I’ve heard you stay with your own kind.”

“Price of the job. We’re busy—not a lot of time to socialize. A lot of our number are pacifists. And…well…” His plates heated with shame. “Some of us feel that, well, we tend to work behind the front lines. It’s hard when you’re trysting with a front line soldier and he comes back to you in pieces. Or not at all. That happens often enough, you start looking to your own when you need some stress relief. We understand each other.” Ratchet sighed; this confession hurt. “Pharma pursued me something fierce. And I kept telling him no, but once he graduated, it got harder. By then he was a doctor in his own right, not my student any more. And he was so…so skilful. Talent to burn. I admired him, the ease with which the job came to him, the…” Ratchet coughed. “The _wings_.”

Oh, yes, Ratchet had had quite the thing for flyers. He ran his hands over Drift’s flank and wondered when, exactly, his tastes had turned to speedy little sports cars. Something was nagging at his memory that he’d had his interests… _adjusted_ , by force even, but nothing was coming to mind and it wasn’t at all a pleasant idea, the notion that someone could forcibly edit a mech’s kinks and desires into a list of a stranger’s devising. Ratchet was much more interested in Drift’s aerodynamics than in pursuing such a distasteful line of thought.

“What happened?” Drift asked.

Oh, and that was the question. Quite a lot of things had happened. “He was… _entitled_ , I think is the word. Thought he deserved whatever he wanted. And that’s not to say he didn’t earn most of it. He _was_ a great doctor. I just wish…wish he could have been content with the lives he saved, the good works he did, rather than having to measure himself against me.” Ratchet let out a slow breath. “Over time, our relationship became less partnership, more competition. He always wanted to one-up me. Wanted to be better.” Ratchet ground his dentae together in the dark. “But what really ended it was the other mechs. Pharma said he took the conjunx endura rite too soon, before he understood what it meant. Not true. He was smart, he understood. What he didn’t want was to be tied down to a single partner. Entitlement, again. The belief that if you’re good enough to get something, then you _deserve_ it, without a thought about whether or not you _should_.”

Drift stiffened. “You two were…significant others?”

“Were. Are. I don’t know.” Ratchet didn’t want to talk about it. “He meant everything to me, but I…I suppose I just wasn’t enough for him, in the end.”

“No offense, but you took the Rite with an idiot.” Even in the dim light of the room, Ratchet could see Drift raise an optic ridge. “You know what I would have done for a mech like you?”

Ratchet was on the verge of describing some of the gossip he’d heard about Drift and what rumour said he would do in a berth, when a thought occurred to him. Shamed him.

If Drift’s circumstances had been so desperate…how many of those rumours were accurate descriptions of Drift’s desires, and how many were things he’d found himself forced to do, to survive?

So Ratchet shook his head, no.

“I never would’ve taken you for granted.” Drift’s optics burned fervently in the dark. A shudder passed through his frame. “Ratch…the reason you don’t…” A combination of agitation and Syk reduced his speech to bursts of words. “…tryst with…is it because…because you…you and Pharma…are you still…”

“No, that’s not why.” Ratchet set his jaw. “We agreed to go our own ways and said we’d stay friends, but…he went to Delphi, I stayed on as Chief Medical Officer, and our lives took different paths. Though….I still considered him a friend up until our little adventure on Messatine.”

“Yeah.” A long pause as Drift relaxed against him. “I ain’t gonna judge you, Ratch, you’d hardly be the first bonded mech on my list.”

“You survived in the Dead End.”

“I mean after that.” Drift paused, barely daring to ask. “Nobody since?”

“No,” Ratchet said, and he was certain that was factually true, but it seemed there was something critical that was just…gone. 

“What’s wrong?” Drift asked.

“Something I thought I should tell you,” Ratchet said, “but it’s…I can’t think of what it could possibly be.”

“You’re into the second phase,” Drift said.

Ratchet must have looked confused, because Drift stroked Ratchet’s helm and murmured, “Memory loss. Don’t worry, it’s temporary. You can tell me tomorrow, when you remember it.”

Ah. If it mattered that much, he’d get it back. In the meantime… “Please tell me you didn’t drink out of that pitcher just so I wouldn’t look pathetic.”

Drift actually laughed. “When you put it that way, I wished I had. Truth? Even I’ve got my limits. I just didn’t want to be walking down the corridor knowing everyone was thinking, _hey, there goes the guy who got fragged by Megatron_.”

Ratchet’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. He drew in breath and realized he still had absolutely nothing to say to that.

Drift got a big fat smirk on his face and actually started to giggle. He lay his head against Ratchet’s shoulder and shook with helpless laughter as Ratchet spluttered.

“ _Scrap it_ , Drift, do you think that’s funny?”

“Your face is.” Drift tried to school his features into a serious expression, though his optics still sparkled and his lip twitched.

“You shouldn’t joke about things like that.”

And Drift grew perfectly still, and all expression fled his face as he looked down at Ratchet. “Wasn’t joking.”

It felt like a spear straight through the spark. All those ridiculous things Drift said, all delivered in a deadpan voice with sparkling optics, waiting to see if he could shock or outrage someone—all those things were real, real and hurting, cutting their way out, played in a bid for attention. They were secrets exposed, stripped bare and disarmed. Best to have them out now, and face them head on, no matter the cost. 

It was the opposite of what Ratchet had done, hiding away…away… Some secret of his own that had been festering inside him and poisoning any chance at a relationship. Funny how Ratchet couldn’t quite remember what it was. 

…Dear Primus, _Megatron_.

Ratchet hoped he could disguise his shock. His disgust. His…his utter _relief_ that the answer hadn’t been Rodimus.

Then he realized he didn’t need to disguise anything. Drift couldn’t see his face, because his first instinct had been to seize the white speedster and haul him close. Ratchet actually slackened his grip, just enough for Drift to pull back and touch his nose to Ratchet’s.

This time Ratchet did not pull away.

Their lips met, so lightly, so very gently. Drift’s fans wafted warm air over Ratchet’s chest, and Ratchet folded his arms over Drift’s back, drawing him near. 

Ratchet did not press the kiss, not yet. He let his hand trace one of Drift’s helm fins and waited for the swordsmech to speak.

“I don’t repulse you, Ratch?” Drift asked sadly. He turned his gaze away. “The other bots here would either be disgusted or way too turned on at the prospect of following that. Figured you for the disgusted type.”

“Pharma, and you’re still here.” 

Drift’s response was to nuzzle closer, until he lay right next to Ratchet, chest to chest, thigh to thigh.

Well, there was an idea. Ratchet’s hands moved of their own volition, closing around sweet speedster curves, tracing the aerodynamic shapes and hooking under plates to stroke the sensitive skin beneath. Drift kissed him again, deeper this time, then hesitated—and Ratchet wondered, for all those rumours made Drift out to be an animal in the berth, just how much Drift knew about kissing. 

Fortunately, the kid was a fast learner. And Ratchet might be rusty, out of practice, but this was the sort of thing a mech never really forgot.

After an indeterminate amount of time, something in the back of Ratchet’s mind swam into his consciousness and informed him that he ought to be concerned. He wasn’t precisely sure what he’d been doing for the last…while (any accurate sense of time had escaped him); the experience of that time had expressed itself solely in sensations, feelings, rising and falling tides of emotion. He didn’t remember what he’d done, or what he’d seen, only how he’d felt. And he’d almost succeeded in telling that voice to just shut up already – he felt far too good to question the situation – except that a certain irritant was bothering him. This, this thing in his hands, it was not as it should be. The Syk-induced disorientation was making his usually nimble fingers clumsy, and try as he might he just could not seem to figure out how to unlatch the clasp on this beautifully aerodynamic piece of speedster armour…

Hands tangled his fingers and drew him away from the clasp, depositing his palms on a sleek chest. And it wasn’t as though that chest wasn’t smooth and warm and pleasant to touch, but Ratchet really wanted to get his hands under that armour. He ran his hands over the chest a few times and then swooped down streamlined sides back to the stubborn clasp. He tugged on it, muttering in frustration.

The hands encircled his wrists and this time, drew his arms up over his head. The motion rolled him from his side to his back. Ratchet tried to sit up, but his wrists were pinned in place, and the mech doing the pinning was up on one elbow, looking down at him. He grunted, struggling against the grip that held him prisoner.

That voice in the back of his mind was frightened now, screaming that he ought to be scared.

But something else flooded his systems with a dark rush of pleasure. Whatever had him was stronger than he was right now. It might well have its wicked way with him, no matter how he tried to stop it.

He might love every minute of it.

Logic screamed in inarticulate panic, and Ratchet’s optics snapped on. How had he forgotten how his own eyes worked? The room spun once, twice, and then Ratchet found himself looking up into Drift’s face.

He tugged against the grip on his wrists.

Drift watched him for a moment and then released him.

Relieved, disappointed, and overall grumpy, Ratchet snorted and rubbed each wrist with the opposite hand. 

“Armour stays on, remember?”

“Whose stupid rule is that?” Ratchet slurred.

“Yours,” Drift retorted bluntly.

“I…I take it back.” His hand reached out for the clasp again. Drift caught the hand in his own and held it gently but firmly.

“Not tonight,” Drift said, his voice strained.

Ratchet looked up at Drift, confused. Was the white speedster mocking him? Funny how Drift’s expression seemed so serious.

“You ask me that tomorrow night, Ratch, I’m going to say yes.”

“Why not now?” Ratchet slurred.

“Because Syk strips away your inhibitions, and you’re too high to know what you’re doing.”

Ratchet huffed. Yes, he was high on Syk and in someone else’s berth, doing all the stupid things he’d never done in his youth, and here was Drift of all people playing coy. 

Ratchet opened his mouth to inform Drift that he’d been in the bar when the Question of the Evening had been “what’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done” and he knew precisely how innocent Drift was, or rather, wasn’t, but instead what came out of his voxcoder was the uncensored version of his thoughts: “I’m not going to have the nerve tomorrow night.”

Mortified, Ratchet wished he could sink into the bunk and disappear, but instead of laughing, Drift just stroked his hand over Ratchet’s cheek and murmured, “Why not? You already know you’ve got a sure thing.”

Ratchet felt his head spinning. He wasn’t sure if this news was good or bad; his emotions were so conflicted. He reached out for Drift again, and after a moment’s hesitation, Drift released his hand. This time he left Drift’s armour be and moved his hand over the white mech’s back instead, seeking out the sensitive pressure points along his spine.

“Can we do this again?” Ratchet murmured, remembering their evening in the med bay while the _Lost Light_ had been in dock at Hedonia.

“Sure,” Drift said with a warm purr of his engine. “I…I’d like that.” He slowly draped himself over Ratchet’s frame, folding against him until they seemed on the verge of combining into one. At some point they rolled over, positions reversed.

Oh, Drift hadn’t forgotten where Ratchet’s own sweet spots were located. Ratchet still wanted to get under the speedster’s armour, but as consolation prizes go, this one wasn’t so bad. The world continued tilting chaotically, but Ratchet just held firmly to Drift and focused on the sound of his berthmate’s fans and his little cries of pleasure, of the way Drift’s fingers danced over his plating and sent electric charges racing through his circuits, and abandoned himself to the sensations. Then he reached up and kissed Drift, tasting the sweetness of something he’d almost forgotten how to feel. The Syk-haze seemed to heighten his emotions even as it stripped away his equilibrium and his inhibitions. He still felt as though he were tumbling through a bottomless void, but he wasn’t tumbling alone. Somehow, that made all the difference.

*

Ratchet didn’t remember his dream, but it couldn’t have been a good one. His head throbbed, his mouth tasted as though he’d been drinking out of a sluice pipe, and his right side was blazing with heat. Muttering to himself, he sat upright; the world lurched, spun, and then dropped into focus.

He was in someone else’s room, in someone else’s berth.

_Drift._

_Whirl._

_Syk._

For a moment, Ratchet wasn’t certain who he was angrier with – Whirl for spiking the drinks, Drift for bringing him here instead of taking him to his own quarters, which would have been the proper thing to do, or himself for being so damned eager to take advantage of the situation – but his rage drained away when he realized why his right leg felt so uncomfortably hot. Drift was curled up against him, still deep in recharge, and his features were contorted with pain. His fans were straining to keep up with the heat his body was generating. Drift shivered and pressed himself tighter against Ratchet.

Concerned, Ratchet bent over Drift, his hands seeking Drift’s medical diagnostic receptor. Ratchet popped the panel on his forearm and plugged in his diagnostic cable, then ran a simple inquiry program and flipped out the monitor on his forearm to read the program’s report. He was not surprised when the results came back: overheating, disorientation, tremors and mental confusion, all the result of withdrawal, and behind those symptoms, an overpowering craving for another hit of Syk.

_Physician, heal thyself._ Ratchet ran a test on his own systems and noticed similar, though much milder, symptoms. He was running a little hot, that was all, and his gyros were unstable. Some glitch in his neurocircuitry that was under automatic repair. His chronometer told him they’d only been resting a few hours; a little more recharge and he’d be back to normal.

Ratchet looked down at Drift again and resisted the urge to wake him up. Whatever bad dream Drift was having, he was at least safe from the reality of the Syk’s aftereffects; that time would come soon enough. Better he sleep through as much of it as possible.

Ratchet retracted his diagnostic cable and lay back down, wrapping his arms around Drift and stroking the speedster’s back gently. Long, slow, gliding strokes were designed to soothe, not to excite. Drift made a sobbing noise and clung to Ratchet tightly.

Together, they’d be okay. Ratchet had to believe that.

He stayed awake as long as he could, monitoring Drift, until the white swordsmech settled back down to rest. Fatigue dragged at Ratchet’s mind, numbing his senses and eventually dragging him back into dream. 

*

Ratchet activated his optics to see an unfamiliar figure sitting at his bedside, reading a datapad. “Chromedome?” Ratchet blurted, shocked at the intrusion. What was Chromedome doing in his hab suite? 

…Wait, wasn’t he in Drift’s hab suite?

Yes. He recognized the tapestries on the walls, the rack of swords, the scent of incense, and the complete lack of medical equipment scattered about. But Drift himself was gone.

Chromedome looked up from his reading; his needles slid from his fingers. “Just because you’ve forgotten it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

Ratchet folded his arms, irritated. “Where’s Drift?”

Chromedome pointed at a chronometer on the wall with a needled index finger. The timer on the display was slowly running backwards.

Ratchet frowned. He was a doctor, but he wasn’t a mnemospecialist like Chromedome. Still, his instincts were telling him this situation wasn’t right. The surreal nature of their surroundings that was driving Ratchet crazy; worse even than the fact that there was no reason for Chromedome to be in Drift’s room. It wasn’t just the malfunctioning chronometer. It was the fact that Chromedome was reading from a blank datapad, and Ratchet couldn’t see the pattern on the tapestries, though they were hanging right there on the walls. 

“This is a dream,” Ratchet said. He pointed an accusatory finger at Chromedome. “You’re not even real.”

“Doesn’t make me a liar,” Chromedome said with a shrug. He picked up a glass of poisonous magenta-coloured liquid from nowhere and drank deeply. “Just because you’ve forgotten it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

_Think. Logically_ , Ratchet chided himself. His subconscious was sending him a message, using Chromedome’s form as a clue. Something about memory. Something about his being in Drift’s room after chugging down Whirl’s Syk-spiked beverage…

_Syk._

_Memory._

Drift had said as much - _there’s the memory-loss phase in the middle_. 

Ratchet had forgotten something. Something very, very important.

Just when Ratchet was trying to figure out precisely what he had forgotten, thanks to that strange little neuro-glitch that was actually Syk paralyzing one of his memory banks…just when he seemed on the verge of recalling something vitally important…he found himself shocked awake.

By the cold steel edge of a sword against his throat.


	4. Dream In Black And White

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated "D" for Deadlock. Here's where some of the triggery stuff lives: dubcon, mindfuck, abuse of prisoners, sword/blood (fuel?) play, etc. Someone tell me I wasn't the only one getting these vibes from Spotlight: Orion Pax.

Chapter Four: Dream In Black And White

 _Border line,_  
 _Dead inside._  
 _I don’t mind_  
 _Falling to pieces._  
 _Count me in,_  
 _Violent,_  
 _Let’s begin_  
 _Feeding the sickness…_

___Show me what it’s like_  
 _To dream in black and white,_  
 _So I can leave this world tonight._

\--Breaking Benjamin, “Unknown Soldier”

  


There was something about the sensation of having a blade pressed to your throat that woke a mech up in an awful hurry, without the usual jolt that came with being startled awake. Had he jumped, Ratchet thought, he probably would have cut his own fuel lines open on the sword. He barely dared to breathe. 

Ratchet brightened his optics slowly and saw a face very close to his own. Optics like two shards of ice. Lips pressed tightly together into an expression not emotional enough to be a frown, not angry enough to be a snarl. Ratchet realized he was pinned on his back, the other mech astride him, looking down on him coldly. 

“Tell me where I am,” Drift said, but he didn’t even sound like Drift any more. Drift’s usual Tarnian accent was graced with the tones and notes of New Crystal City; this voice sounded as though it aspired to be Tarnian, but its true nature was something rougher and harsher still. Something like Rodian, tainted with the guttural patois rhythms of the Dead End.

“Drift?” Ratchet asked.

The eyes narrowed. “Drift is gone,” the mech growled. “How did you know that name?”

Ratchet felt his voxcoder seize.

 _Memory loss._ The medical journals said Syk affected your neuro banks, causing temporary memory loss. Ratchet had a horrible suspicion that the drug had fixated on Drift’s more recent memories.

Like, say, _everything that happened since he found New Crystal City._

“Deadlock?” Ratchet breathed, wishing he believed in Primus so he could pray this wasn’t happening.

The white speedster gave him a clipped nod, and looked him over closely. “Where the frag are my guns, Autobot?’

Ratchet lay perfectly still, barely daring to breathe. The medic considered just telling Drift what he had forgotten, but immediately he thought better of it. The mech on top of him was Deadlock, one of Megatron’s elite. If Ratchet tried to tell him he was an Autobot, he wouldn’t believe it. He’d think it was a trick, or a trap, and he might hurt himself—or someone else, if he left the hab suite and discovered himself alone on an “enemy” spaceship. 

Deadlock had been dangerous…a killer. Ratchet couldn’t let him loose on the _Lost Light_. Which was more upsetting– the idea of Drift on the rampage, like Fort Max had been, or the idea of someone shooting Drift, maybe killing him, to stop him? _Definitely—disturbingly—the second._

 _If Deadlock threatens me, how can I stop him without hurting him?_ Particularly—the pressure of the sword on Ratchet’s neck burned, and the medic was certain it had sliced his fuel lines just a little—particularly when Deadlock had no qualms about harming Ratchet.

Suddenly the sword at his throat loosened, giving him an opportunity to breathe a little more deeply. “I know you,” Deadlock said, a frown creasing his features. “You’re that medic in the Dead End.”

Ratchet wanted to nod, but the sword was still unpleasantly close. “Yes,” he replied instead. 

Deadlock paused, calling up the name from old memory banks. “Ratchet, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Suspicion clouded his optics. “Where are we? This isn’t a med bay.”

“These are your quarters.”

Deadlock lifted the sword, though he didn’t release his grip on Ratchet’s shoulder. He ran the blade over Ratchet’s Autobot badge. “Looks like you made a bad choice, doctor. Getting involved in a war.” He began teasing the edge of the blade under Ratchet’s badge, as though he intended to lever it free. “Why are you in my quarters?”

“You brought me here.”

Ratchet regretted those words the second they were out of his mouth. Deadlock looked at him intently, and then a slow, wicked smile curved its way over his lips.

“ _Did_ I,” he mused, and it wasn’t a question.

 _I should not have said that_ , Ratchet realized, and on the heels of that thought came an epiphany more terrible still: he ought to be afraid, he ought to be sickened even, but he wasn’t. He had a horrible suspicion the best word to describe his feelings right now was _excited_.

How was that possible? What kind of twisted mechanism would want _this_? Just the thought of being at a Decepticon’s mercy should make him want to purge his fuel tanks and…

No. This was _Drift_. And the memory loss caused by Syk was temporary. Ratchet just had to wait until the effect wore off and Drift remembered…everything that had made him Drift, the Autobot, the third-in-command of the Lost Light. Ratchet looked into those bitter optics and reminded himself that Drift was still in there, and always had been.

And Ratchet would ignore that perverse, foreign voice whispering in the back of his brain.

Deadlock scraped the blade slowly over Ratchet’s chest. Ratchet could see his paint job flaking; a little tremor passed through his hands. “How about you tell me,” Deadlock purred, “why I don’t remember any of this.”

Ratchet closed his eyes and wished he believed enough to pray. “Syk.”

Deadlock’s eyes flashed. The slowly moving sword stopped; the tip dug in, denting metal. “I don’t do Syk,” he said, clearly and coldly and enunciating each word.

“Dammit, our drinks were spiked!”

“ _Our_.” The sword began tracing a trail towards Ratchet’s left shoulder.

“We’re both in the memory loss phase. That’s why you don’t remember how you got here. Or, I’ll wager, any of your recent history.”

Deadlock stilled, thinking. “Is that why you’re not in the brig?”

“What?”

Deadlock let the sword slip into Ratchet’s shoulder joint – just far enough to hurt – before he pulled it out and sent it snaking its way towards the other shoulder. “Because usually if I’m entertaining an Autobot, it’s in the brig. Usually it’s because someone needs the truth cut out of them.” Ratchet knew what was coming, and this time he was prepared for the sword prying at his other joint. Funny how the pain sent this strange little tingle through his systems. “But you’re telling me I took you to my berth, and you aren’t even in cuffs, and that gives me the strangest suspicion that _you want to be here_.”

“All right, you’ve got me,” Ratchet gritted. “You might have brought me here, but I didn’t particularly object. We got bad drinks and now we’re supposed to be taking care of each other.”

“I’ll just _bet_ we are.” Deadlock withdrew the sword from Ratchet’s shoulder and twirled it around, bringing it to a stop with the tip just ever so slightly pricking Ratchet under the chin. “Where are my guns?”

Ratchet had to think fast. Drift, of course, had given up guns for swords during his time in New Crystal City; but he needed a faster, easier answer that Deadlock would believe. “You want a gun that I could grab, Decepticon?”

Deadlock’s lips split into a cold, predatory smile. “Maybe not. These swords are kind of fun.” He pulled the blade away, spun it again, this time letting the blade pass lower over Ratchet’s nose with each rotation. “Is this your idea of a good time?”

“Not particularly.” The words were out of Ratchet’s mouth before he could think better of them. His fear of what Drift might do to him was minor compared to his fear of what might happen if Drift got his memory back in the midst of, say, chopping him apart with those swords. Drift, Ratchet was coming to realize, was far more fragile than he let on.

Weren’t they both.

“Good. I’m told I’m doing it wrong if the Autobot likes it.” He tapped Ratchet on the cheek with the flat of the sword. “Coming here was a big mistake, Ratchet. Coming here to my quarters, to my berth.”

The words caught and echoed, repeating and ringing down the corridors of his mind. Ratchet wasn’t sure if his self-repair systems had completed their task at that precise moment, or if it was this experience that jogged his memory, the Decepticon pinning him down, the smell of his own energon, the implied threat, and then those words...

_Coming outside all alone was a big mistake, Ratchet...I’m about to hurt you in ways only a doctor would understand._

“So while it’s pretty obvious what you want,” Deadlock hissed in his audio, “I want you to _tell_ me. Tell me you want my cable in your tight little valve. Tell me you want me jacked so hard into your port that you choke on static.”

 _Rape? I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible, Doctor. By th_ e _time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging me for it._

That wasn’t Deadlock’s voice. That was....was...

“Tell me why I shouldn’t call up Optimus Prime and tell him that his Chief Medical Officer is a Decepticon pleasurebot.”

Ratchet lay frozen in fear, listening to the phantom drown out Deadlock’s next words. _Orion Pax will come for you? Why yes, I hope he does. I’m counting on it, in fact. But we have plenty of time before he gets here._

Another voice floated up from Ratchet’s memory: his own. _You want to have some fun with that sword, Bludgeon, you go right ahead. I’m no use to you dead and Pharma can fix whatever you do to me in the meantime._

That’s when Bludgeon had gotten that big, evil, sickening grin, and leaned close and whispered in Ratchet’s audio: _There’s no fixing what I’ve got in mind. Not unless you want to fry your whole brain. Good thing you have Pharma though, because I’m about to hurt you in ways only a doctor would understand._

A vision rose up in Ratchet’s mind—a memory of staring defiantly into evilly gleaming optics, brashly telling himself that he could endure whatever he was about to receive, even as he scoffed at Bludgeon’s arcane chanting in Old Cybertronian as he slid the needles into Ratchet’s brain. For the first few moments it was bearable. Then came the cold slide along his neural circuitry, a sensation like chilled jelly sliding clump by clump through his inner cables. He felt it changing him, rewiring him, and he opened his mouth to scream and groaned in pleasure instead. Terror sprang up inside him, and with it came an equal craving for _more_ , more of this violation, and all the while Bludgeon was watching him with a hideous _delight…_

_Bludgeon._

That was what he hadn’t been able to remember.

Bludgeon and his thought-altering code that still laced Ratchet’s neural net.

Any relief Ratchet might have felt at having gotten his memory back was torn away when Deadlock clawed open Ratchet’s armour clasps. Cold air chilled Ratchet’s cable and, below it, the sensitive valve guarding the passage to his data intake port. 

The port was a very delicate component, used for data exchanges, something most mechanisms entrusted only to their conjunx endura. More casual encounters involved overloads through valve and cable play—all the release, none of the devastating intimacy. Single mechs used blocks to prevent their playtime from going too far.

Ratchet had not thought to block access to his port. He’d been celibate for a very long time, bonded to Pharma before that. He hadn’t interfaced outside his relationship. He’d had no need to concern himself with unwanted data transfers.

Surely Deadlock wouldn’t try anything like that. Surely Deadlock would just content himself with a quick frag in Ratchet’s valve and be done with it. This wouldn’t be so bad, Ratchet tried to tell himself, though the truth was he really didn’t want this to be his first encounter with Drift. All the while, his memories were reminding him of how badly he’d underestimated Bludgeon and Bludgeon’s damn coding was spinning up his fans and heating his plating and otherwise making his body flash every green light it could find at Deadlock, regardless of Ratchet’s thoughts on the matter.

And, Ratchet had to admit, there were a handful of thoughts in his head that wanted Drift, wanted him more than he wished to admit. Wanted him even like this.

Deadlock was staring at him—admiring, Ratchet wondered, or calculating? How much longer until Drift resurfaced?

Ratchet decided to close his optics and pretend it was Drift in there. Sooner or later, it would be.

He heard, rather than saw, Deadlock’s armour come off—a series of clicks, and a moment later, the clatter of Deadlock’s armour hitting the floor. Deadlock’s weight struck Ratchet in the chest, as though the other mech had seen fit to drop on him like a pit fighter pinning his opponent to the ground—as though it didn’t count if it didn’t hurt. Deadlock’s cable snaked over Ratchet’s inner thigh. He could feel the Decepticon’s fans blowing hot against his neck, curdling the spilled energon from his punctured lines. Deadlock grabbed Ratchet’s shoulders, pressing his back into the berth, digging in his fingers until they hurt, and Ratchet did not struggle, did not even allow himself to wince.

“Aren’t you going to fight?” Deadlock demanded. “Don’t you even have anything to say?”

And it wasn’t like Ratchet to be speechless, but he was disarmed against a foe he couldn’t bear to hurt. He knew the caustic words that would cut Deadlock to his spark— _buymech, gutter trash, filthy siphonist, leaker_ —but he couldn’t force them out of his mouth.

Sometimes the right thing wasn’t to fight back. If this was the cost of keeping Deadlock occupied, so be it. He would make this sacrifice to stop Drift from going out into the hall and getting hurt.

Ratchet onlined his optics just enough to see the outline of Deadlock’s features. “You go right ahead and do whatever you want.” He clenched his jaw, wondering how rough Deadlock would be—wondering if he could take this, wondering if he was making a huge mistake—and then Deadlock recoiled from him. 

Strange how Ratchet felt almost insulted. “What are you waiting for?”

The swordsmech spoke tersely. “There’s a difference between _I’ll let you do whatever you want_ and _yes_.”

With that, Deadlock climbed off of him, and took a seat on the side of the berth instead.

Ratchet felt almost dizzy with sudden relief. He tried to sit up and almost fell backwards. He managed to reach out, find his codpiece armour and fit it back into place, fumbling his armour clasps shut again while his equilibrium slowly returned. He could hear the small snaps of Deadlock doing the same.

“This really my room?” Deadlock asked, looking around with an expression of confusion.

“I already said it was,” Ratchet retorted, unable to quite get the testiness out of his voice, however unwise it might be. 

Deadlock was already reaching under the berth. His finger snagged a box and pulled it out into the light.

“What do you know, you’re right.” He selected something out of the box and tossed it to Ratchet. “Drink that.”

Ratchet fumbled, barely caught it. It was a small cube. The contents looked like energon, but glowed with a faint silvery tinge.

“What’s this?”

“There’s a systems decontaminant in it. It’ll help you feel better.” His mouth twisted. “You know, because we’re apparently supposed to be looking after each other.”

Ratchet craned his neck and noticed that the box was three-quarters full with ration cubes of various sizes and varieties. “You keep fuel under your bed?”

“Once Dead End, always Dead End.” Deadlock took a similar cube for himself, drained it like a shot and kicked the box back under the berth.

Of course. Fuel hoarding would make sense for a mech used to deprivation; it would be a comfort, to know there was something on hand should he get hungry. Ratchet opened up the cube, took a sip, and almost choked.

Deadlock laughed.

“What’s so funny? This tastes like…like…” Ratchet was almost at a loss for words. “Like licking a filthy waste disposal pipe in a gutter.”

“Spoken like someone who’s never actually licked a waste disposal pipe.” Deadlock shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Doctor.”

Ratchet felt a chill. He could sense the barely contained anger under those words. The years of resentment for his life in the Dead End, starving, selling his services to those who kicked him around and trampled him under their heels. This, Ratchet realized, was what had driven Drift to become a Decepticon. To get a chance to kick back.

Deadlock stood up, speaking softly, as if to himself. “I don’t know what game you’re playing. But I do know there’s something you’re not telling me, and I also know I don’t like it.”

Ratchet never saw him coming.

One moment he was finishing the systems decontaminant, the next thing, he was on his back across the berth, head hanging half-off the far side, pinned by Deadlock and the sword back at his neck. Ratchet realized, sickeningly, that just because Drift wouldn’t rape him didn’t mean Deadlock wouldn’t kill him.


	5. Devil in the Church

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Yes, it got longer. Sigh. Enjoy, everyone.

_Listen up, listen up_  
 _There's a devil in the church_  
 _Got a bullet in the chamber_  
 _And this is gonna hurt_  
 _Let it out, let it out_  
 _You can scream and you can shout_  
 _Keep your secrets in the shadows and you'll be sorry_

\--Sixx A.M., “This Is Gonna Hurt”

 

“So here’s what you’re going to do now.” The sharp tip of the sword pricked at Ratchet’s throat, and he gasped as he felt the slow burn, then the sticky cool sensation of energon seeping down his neck. “You’re going to tell me why an Autobot like you wants to be here with the likes of me.”

Ratchet was scared. Of course he was scared. He’d never imagined that Drift would seriously hurt him and he had to remember this wasn’t Drift, not exactly. This was a mechanism who’d lived in the gutters, lost his closest friend, found a talent for killing and put it to use taking everything he’d ever had to do without. Ratchet would be a fool to forget that Deadlock was a killer.

And his own frame was betraying him with a blazing heat he was certain Deadlock could feel against his thighs. Ratchet opened his vents, hoping to run his fans a little and dissipate the heat without Deadlock noticing.

From the smirk on the ‘Con’s face, he doubted he’d been successful.

Deadlock leaned forward and let the sword tickle the big fuel lines in Ratchet’s throat.

“Okay,” Ratchet said. “Put the sword down and I’ll talk.”

“You’re not in any position to make demands, Doctor. But since I’m feeling so nice, how about this. I make sure you can speak without opening your fuel lines, and you understand that if you tell me something I don’t like, that I can happily sleep in a pool of your innermost energon splattered all over my berth. Are we clear?”

Ratchet couldn’t nod—the sword was still against his jaw—so he said the word instead. “Yes.”

Deadlock lifted the sword, ran the tip of it down the side of Ratchet’s helm and then tracing a burning line over Ratchet’s cheek. “Make this good.”

Ratchet dimmed his optics. He’d never told another mech this before. Not Pharma, who was supposed to be his conjunx endura. Not Rung, even though as a doctor he knew damn well he ought to have gone for therapy. Not any of his friends who he’d fought alongside. It had been easier to live celibate for four million years than to say these words out loud.

“Bludgeon,” he managed, and his voice was almost a sob.

The sword halted in its travels.

“Bludgeon,” Deadlock hissed. 

Ratchet activated his optics. He wasn’t certain where the sword had gone, but Deadlock had Ratchet’s shoulders in both of his hands and was leaning close, their faces an inch apart. “Bludgeon what?”

Ratchet let out a sigh. “Pharma and I had a fight and I left the Deltaran Medical Facility alone. No bodyguards. No companion. I just…I just wanted to get some space to think. To come to terms with the fact that although Pharma was my conjunx endura, we were bad for each other. He kept comparing himself to me, trying to outdo me and it wasn’t good for anyone – not for him, not for the patients. Not for those other mechs he shacked up with and then discarded.”

“Not for you,” Deadlock supplied.

“Not my concern,” Ratchet retorted angrily. “I was trying to figure out the _right_ thing to do. If I’d had my way I’d have been able to pretend I didn’t see—or even didn’t mind—what Pharma was doing. And then Bludgeon’s crew came out of nowhere and jumped me, and nothing was ever okay again. I woke up in chains in an arena in the middle of the Rust Spot with old spooky himself leaning over me.”

Ratchet was almost certain he didn’t imagine the shudder in Deadlock’s frame. Deadlock might understand exactly what he was talking about, and the notion filled Ratchet with a blinding fury. Ratchet could deal with it—had been dealing with it for a long time—but be damned if Drift should be dealing with it on top of everything else he’d survived. He realized too late that his rage was showing on his face.

“You got quite the fire there, Autobot.” Deadlock was whispering to him, his lips pressed against the side of Ratchet’s face, his tongue whispering over the burn where the sword had cut. Ratchet’s vision slowly returned and he could see, from the corner of his eye, the blade in Deadlock’s hand. “You’d best be careful what you try to do with it.”

Ratchet harnessed his emotions, but not before a few words escaped his lips. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

Deadlock pulled away, raised an optic ridge. And the sword.

They held each other’s gazes for a moment, and then Deadlock slowly, deliberately, set the sword down again. The speedster shifted atop Ratchet and the medic struggled not to groan in appreciation as their plates pressed against one another.

“All right, Bludgeon.” Ratchet gasped in air, trying to reconcile the disgust he felt whenever he thought about those events with the way his body was reacting to Deadlock on top of him. It was so much like the situation he’d been struggling with all these millennia, repulsed and aroused in equal measure. “Bludgeon’s plan is to use me as bait for a trap for Orion Pax and Alpha Trion, but before that—while he’s waiting—he decides he’s going to have a little fun.”

Deadlock’s optics darkened as his lip curled, baring teeth. _Possessive, is he?_ Ratchet thought with perverse satisfaction.

“When Pax finally rolls up, he bellows at Bludgeon, demands to know if I’ve been hurt. And Bludgeon gives him this little smirk and says—and I’ve never forgotten this—he says he’s _hurt me in ways only a doctor can understand_.”

Deadlock set his jaw, as though steeling himself to hear what came next.

“See, that expression tells me you understand rape just fine. So did Pax. And when I told them the Decepticons had left my body alone, everybody looked so relieved and thought I was okay.” Ratchet shuddered; he couldn’t help it. “Some nights I wish Bludgeon had just gone ahead and done it; at least someone would have understood what happened then.”

“Be careful what you wish for.” Deadlock was whispering in his audio again, but he sounded like Drift now, even with the Dead End accent bleeding into his voice. “Bludgeon is…” Deadlock quivered, and Ratchet couldn’t help it. He folded his arms around Deadlock’s shoulders.

Deadlock flinched, and just when Ratchet expected the sword to find its way into some part of his anatomy, the speedster on top of him relaxed and kneaded his shoulders in a grip more comforting than painful. For an unknown time they clung to each other, just holding tight, and then Deadlock growled in Ratchet’s audio, “You’re mine now.”

Ratchet had no similar comfort to offer—no way to tell Drift that he was safe from Bludgeon on the Lost Light—but he held his breath and stroked the fins on the speedster’s helmet and watched Deadlock’s expression change to one of confusion.

“I don’t understand you, Autobot,” Deadlock said huskily.

Ratchet ran his hand over Deadlock’s cheek. “Tell me if you know the term _mutocogitas_.”

Deadlock tilted his head in what was obviously a negative.

“It’s apparently some ancient rite practiced by the Mortilus cult. At first I wasn’t afraid. I’m not sure about you…” Ratchet suspected New Crystal City and the Chaos Event might have been the sources of Drift’s religious convictions. He rather doubted that Deadlock had believed in much of anything. 

Deadlock snorted. “A scary story for soft mechs who haven’t learned how much there is in life to be scared of.”

Ratchet nodded. “Yes, that’s what I thought. Let Bludgeon carry out his little ritual if it entertained him and kept him too busy to cook up some actual torture. Except I hadn’t bargained that his rite might have scientifically measurable, real-world consequences. _Mutocogitas_ isn’t just some flaky chanting and random taps to the brain. If I had to guess…” His frame trembled. He couldn’t help it. “If I had to guess, some of the Ancients were dabbling in menemosurgery long before they understood the science behind the technique.”

Deadlock grew very still. “They reprogrammed you.”

“Not as effectively as Shadowplay, but yes, more or less.” Ratchet felt miserable; he’d hoped he’d never have to confess the extent of this violation. He dimmed his optics, steeled his nerves and continued. “Bludgeon tapped into the part of my mind that controls desires and he…just…started…rewriting.”

Ratchet knew he wasn’t imagining the tightening grip on his shoulders. It almost hurt; and yet Ratchet rested his cheek on Deadlock’s hand and kept talking. “I used to have this thing for jets, you know…wings, I liked wings…it’s all gone now. Wings don’t do anything for me any more, but they _used_ to. Bludgeon left enough that I remember what’s gone. I look at fliers and I try to make myself feel the attraction and I don’t, I can’t. He took that from me and in its place he plugged in…”

Ratchet’s voxcoder failed him.

Deadlock shifted on top of him, slid actually until the swordsmech was beside him, pulling Ratchet over onto his side where Deadlock could loop an arm over his back.

“Plugged in what?” Deadlock’s voice was a hoarse rasp; a voice unaccustomed to tenderness.

“Sp-sports cars.”

Ratchet heard the huff of laughter, hated how it made him feel. “That’s why you like me?”

Scalding fluids rose up in Ratchet’s throat and the medic let himself spit out all the loathing he felt. “I’m not an animal, I don’t try to ‘face every speedster I see. I look at them, and I like looking, and then I hate that I’m looking, it isn’t something I want but it feels real.”

“So Bludgeon gave you a sports car kink.” Deadlock sounded amused, and it made Ratchet quiver with rage.

“That is the _least_ of what he did.” _Drift of all people should be a little more sympathetic_ , Ratchet thought. _Drift knew what it was like to be forced, but of course, if it’s not physical it doesn’t count, does it, Ratchet? It’s all in your head_. “I think he tried to make me a ‘Con, or at least more like him. It worked less than he’d hoped and far more than I can deal with. I’m not running amok in the Autobot ranks. I’m not like…like Whirl, or Flame or some of the more messed up Autobots out there. I’m hoping I convinced Bludgeon he failed but…he didn’t.” 

Ratchet drew in a ragged breath. “You try explaining to your conjunx endura why you’re suddenly a different person in the berth. You try being attracted to someone and then having to figure out if it’s genuine attraction or if it’s someone else’s tinkering yanking your chain, making you like and do things you never would have done before. You try thinking of something and feeling equally parts utterly revolted and completely turned on, until…” Ratchet felt the old fatigue from this struggle rising up inside him. “Never mind. This is what happens when you live in constant conflict between what your morality tells you is right, and what your instincts tell you is desirable. In the end it’s easier to be alone.”

Deadlock’s voice seemed to come from far away. “’Facing someone doesn’t mean you aren’t alone.”

Ratchet dimmed his optics, miserable, wishing he could just curl into himself and shut the world outside his walls. Deadlock’s words hammered at his defences until they smashed their way through. “We ‘facing, Ratch?”

He sounded so much like Drift that Ratchet couldn’t help brightening his optics. The white mech was sitting on the berth, looking down at him with an expression that was more curious than anything.

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Deadlock said, but as he reached for the sword, Ratchet saw the flicker of fear in his optics and suddenly realized what this experience must have been like for Deadlock: waking up in a strange place, in a strange bed, his memories shattered, tangled up with someone he identified as an enemy. No wonder he went for his blades.

“I’m not lying. Though _not yet_ might be more accurate.”

Deadlock’s hand paused before it closed around a hilt. “I’m not your prisoner,” he said, thinking it through. “If this was an Autobot ship, someone would have come to help you.” Deadlock paused, looking around the corners of the ceiling. “Is Soundwave watching this?”

The idea made Ratchet’s tanks churn as he sat up. “This is a neutral ship.” It wasn’t even a lie, technically speaking.

“And we’re here because…”

Sometimes the truth really was the best choice. “We’re not ‘facing. We might, however, be sneaking around and making out behind closed doors in between long stretches of not talking to each other.”

There. See what Deadlock made of that bit of honesty.

Deadlock looked at Ratchet blankly for a few seconds before his mouth curved in a big slag-sucking grin. “Seriously?” His gaze raked Ratchet up and down. “So that’s why you’re so revved up. And why you get all jumpy if I come on strong.”

And be damned if the white speedster didn’t sidle closer and murmur, “So what did you do to get me to play nice?”

There was no Primus to help him when Ratchet opened his mouth and words prompted by that dark code slithered out. “I seem to recall you being very, very nice when you came around in Rodion.”

“Yeah, and I seem to recall you turning me down flat,” Deadlock huffed.

Ratchet folded his arms, back in control of himself again. “I was your physician. It wouldn’t be professional.”

Deadlock’s optics lit up and a teasing smile curved his lips. “You’re not my doctor now.”

 _I am going to have to have a talk with First Aid about transferring care,_ Ratchet realized, with nowhere near the degree of concern he ought to have. “I suppose not,” he said slowly, “but you _do_ realize some fragger spiked our drinks tonight, and we’re both still coming off of Syk hits.”

“You look pretty sober.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about.”

“That’s sweet.” Deadlock’s smile was mocking, but the stunned look in his optics indicated that Ratchet’s words had hit home. A moment later, the grin faltered. “I…I’m going to regret that stuff with the swords when I get my memory back, aren’t I?” He reached up, touched the spilled energon growing thick on Ratchet’s chestplate.

“Apology accepted,” Ratchet said huskily, and leaned forward and kissed him.

Deadlock—Drift—hesitated through a quick cycle of his vents and then returned the kiss. His arms folded over Ratchet’s shoulders. The kiss was a little halting, a little awkward, as though Deadlock were trying to remember how it was done—then, with a tilt of his head, their mouths meshed perfectly. A low purr started in the speedster’s chest, and he pulled away, his optics betraying a hint of surprise; then he hid it by running his lips down Ratchet’s neck cables and the medic gasped, feeling both his systems and Deadlock’s pulse with heat. 

“Okay, I believe you,” Deadlock said, his voice hoarse. “You definitely spin my crankshaft.” His tongue traced a sensuous path down Ratchet’s throat. “So,” Deadlock murmured against Ratchet’s neck, “why aren’t we ‘facing again?” He nipped at the medic’s tender neck cables. “You optimistic the ‘Bots will take me prisoner and you’ll have to be my doctor again?” His tongue soothed over the nips, lapping perilously close to the area where his blades had cut. 

“We shouldn’t,” Ratchet argued, not very persuasively.

“Of course we shouldn’t,” Deadlock agreed, as his hands traced the catches of Ratchet’s amour. “That’s what makes it fun.”

“I’m not good for you,” Ratchet muttered, as the voice of reason slapped him upside the brain module and demanded to know what in the Pit he thought he was doing.

Deadlock tilted his head. “Mmm, you afraid Megatron will catch me?” He pried open one of the catches even as his tongue traced long, wet strokes over Ratchet’s chest. “I’ll take care of that.” From the corner of his eye, Ratchet saw Deadlock’s optics flash possessively. 

Ratchet’s fans whirred, betraying him, and he feared that Bludgeon’s code had nothing at all to do with his current state of arousal. “It’s because…because I’m laced up with a pile of Decepticon-engineered code, and….”

Deadlock pulled away, an incredulous expression on his face as he gestured to himself with both hands. _Who’s a Decepticon now?_ he seemed to be saying. “And it makes you hot for a sweet little speedster with a purple badge,” Deadlock purred.

“ _And_ it encourages me to take advantage of you.”

“Mmm. Please do.” He grinned down at Ratchet and burst out laughing. “Yeah, like that’s supposed to what? Bother me? Scare me? You think I’m any different than you?”

Ratchet shook his head, despite the sensation in his spark, the feeling of a dark rose blooming in the light of a kindred spirit. “I’m not good for you,” Ratchet repeated. “You should have a nice mech.”

“I don’t want a nice mech,” Deadlock sneered, then lowered his lips to Ratchet’s audio and said, “Maybe I like you the way you are.”

“Drift...”

“My name is _Deadlock_ ,” the white swordsmech scowled, and Ratchet felt that dark coding spark a fury inside him.

“No, it’s Drift,” Ratchet insisted, and he grabbed the white mech’s chin, as though by doing so he could force the speedster to see the truth. “Deadlock is what Megatron named you. Well, frag Megatron. When I met you, you were Drift. And as far as I’m concerned, you _are_ Drift. Always.”

The white mech struggled just for an instant, almost reflexively; then he became very still. “You shouldn’t tell me what to do. I could still stab you.”  


“You won’t.”

“You’re sure.”

Ratchet locked optics with him. “I am.” Ratchet let go of Drift’s chin. Drift didn’t move away. Their gazes held a moment more.

Then Drift dimmed his optics, submitting, and Ratchet drew him close, and in that moment the medic realized a line had been crossed, and there would be no going back.


	6. Make the Most

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the following are chock-full of robot yaoi. Not your thing? Skip ahead to chapter...8? Maybe 9. I'll update the numbers here when the story is done, if I can get these two to stop fooling around long enough to write a conclusion ;) 
> 
> Conversely, if you're just here for the sex scene, here's the start of it.

Chapter Six: Make the Most 

___It's my own design_   
_It's my own remorse_   
_Help me to decide_   
_Help me make the_   
_Most of freedom and of pleasure_   
_Nothing ever lasts forever_   
_Everybody wants to rule the world_

\--Tears for Fears, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” 

  


“Mmm,” Deadlock purred, laying his cheek against Ratchet’s chest. “I guess that settles who’s in charge.” 

“Why does someone have to be in charge?” Ratchet demanded testily. 

Deadlock lifted his head and raised an optic ridge. “So, I guess the Syk is messing with your memories too, but…. _that’s how it works_.” His fingers traced lazy circles on Ratchet’s chestplate. “Whoever’s got the authority does what they like; whoever doesn’t takes it. If you’re thinking like a ‘Con now, you should know that.” 

“Well that’s not how it works where I come from,” Ratchet grumbled. “A relationship is supposed to be about two equals.” 

Deadlock snorted. “How do you even know who does what then?” He shook his head, disbelieving, as though the notion made him uncomfortable. “Fire up that Con code and let it explain to you that it’s _reassuring_ that way.” He nuzzled Ratchet’s shoulder as though to punctuate his words. 

Ratchet found himself stunned into silence as the speedster continued. “Shockwave’s apparently got this theory that ‘facing is a, how did he put it, a physical re-enactment of social structures. You get it? It’s a ritual that reinforces your role.” Deadlock grinned lazily. “And that’s why _this_ is filthy, even for me. I mean, what’s my role with you?” He folded his fingers in between Ratchet’s as he said, “Standing orders says to shoot you or haul you in.” He paused a moment, then nipped at Ratchet’s lower lip. “I’m not going to, but…” 

“Why not?” Ratchet murmured as he stroked Drift’s helmet fins. 

Deadlock snickered. “You want me to?” 

“No, but I’m…curious.” He tweaked the tip of a finial. “Why not?” 

The speedster turned his face away and muttered something. 

Ratchet stilled his hands. “I didn’t hear that.” 

“I said I don’t like seeing you hurt,” Deadlock said petulantly. “Now keep going with that.” 

“Ask nicely.” 

“Keep going with that, _please_.” 

Satisfied, Ratchet resumed his caresses. Deadlock sighed, settling against him, and Ratchet let his hands play over the speedster’s frame to keep the other mech quiet while Ratchet tried to figure out what in the Pit to do next. 

There was something in Ratchet that really didn’t like the idea of pushing his authority, and there was something else urging him to exploit this opportunity to the fullest. Why not, if Drift liked it? But Ratchet was an Autobot and he still believed a relationship was supposed to be egalitarian, give and take. Power games were what ruined his previous relationship with Pharma. And what was the point of allowing rank to dictate your role while interfacing, when both ways had their unique charms? 

…Come to think of it, which of them was really the leader here? Based on rank alone it would be Drift. Ratchet could make a case for seniority in the med bay, but this wasn’t the med bay—it was Drift’s private quarters. Ratchet admitted a certain amount of discomfort at the idea of giving Deadlock free reign – that had been unpleasant, earlier – but…but… 

The truth was they both already knew the answer. 

From the moment Ratchet laid eyes on the battered wreck Orion Pax had brought him, from the moment Drift woke up under Ratchet’s gentle hands, they both knew who was in charge. 

“Don’t let me push you too far.” It seemed like the right thing to say, given that the thoughts in his head were so twisted. 

Deadlock leaned his head against Ratchet’s shoulder. “Promise me you won’t break anything you can’t fix.” 

Ratchet snorted. “Drift, I’m the _Chief Medical Officer_. There’s not a lot that I can’t fix.” 

Deadlock shrugged. “Then there’s not a lot that’s too far.” 

Ratchet sat still, aghast, even though Drift was rubbing his cheek against the medic’s chestplate and letting his engine trill with interest. Ratchet felt his spark surge and his temper flare. Somebody should have been good to Drift long before this. Ratchet couldn’t wipe away those shadows in the kid’s past; but he could make damned sure the present encounter was done right. The medic finally managed to force out a string of words. “Kid, you got a lot of learning to do.” 

“Hey, Doc, you better not be losing your nerve on me,” Deadlock said, and Ratchet couldn’t tell if it was teasing, a threat, or an expression of worry. 

The ambiguity—Drift’s confusion of power and affection, of pain and pleasure—sent a pulse of anger through Ratchet’s systems, and Ratchet said “Let me _teach_ you.” The authority in his voice of course got Drift’s attention. Ratchet patted his chest. “I want you up here.” 

Deadlock bowed his head, accepting, and for a moment Ratchet felt a wrenching in his fuel pump, that his invitation felt like obligation to Drift. In that brief span of time he wondered whether he had any right to do this, and if he didn’t, whether anyone else ever would, and if he were simply justifying his own selfish desires. He believed—he had to—that he was doing the right thing, and reminded himself that he’d wielded a scalpel before, that sometimes a few cuts had to be made in order to repair something deeper. 

Drift crept atop him on all fours, straddling his hips and lowering himself into position. “Like this?” 

Ratchet couldn’t deny how good it felt, and ever so quickly he wished he could believe in some God that might hear a prayer to do this right. “That’s nice, kid…” He closed his hands on the speedster’s shoulders. “Remember this?” 

Deadlock shook his head. 

Fortunately, Ratchet remembered what Drift liked, and where to find those sweet spots on his back that teased the nerve clusters all along his spinal strut—and lower. Deadlock gasped as he re-discovered just what a talented medic with a knowledge of the nervous system and skilful hands could do. Ratchet didn’t want to think about what Drift might have thought he was in for; his expression was one of surprise quickly overcome by pleasure. His lips parted in wonder; a needy moan spilled from his throat. 

Ratchet rubbed his fingers over a sensitive neural knot and smiled as Drift’s hips began to move in silent invitation. His other hand ghosted over Drift’s rib struts and the white speedster’s fans clicked on. Ratchet bit down on his own lip, trying to keep his own body under control, but it was hard when Drift was writhing on top of him like that, when he felt the sports car’s plates sliding over his chest. All those aerodynamic curves were right there in arm’s reach and when he stroked them, Drift mewled his encouragement and ground against him harder. The speedster’s optics met Ratchet’s, and it was that look of shocked enthusiasm that snapped Ratchet’s fans on. Drift was loving this, and he wanted more. 

That dark, silky voice purred in Ratchet’s consciousness, telling him that he could order Drift to sit up and strip his armour, and the white mech would obey. The idea had undeniable appeal—that sleek body on display for Ratchet’s pleasure—but Ratchet knew that Drift would comply with his eyes downcast and his head bowed. No, Ratchet didn’t want that. Perhaps another time—when Drift could look him in the eye and smile suggestively. 

Right now, Ratchet curled his fingers over Drift’s armour clasps and then hesitated. “May I?” 

Drift’s sensuous rubbing stopped cold, and he let out a huff of disbelief. “You can do whatever the hell you want and…” 

Drift’s optics almost crossed when he found Ratchet’s index finger pressed against his lips. 

“Let me rephrase that. Would you like me to?” 

Drift hesitated, as though he were searching for the correct answer, and Ratchet let his finger slide down to Drift’s chin while his other hand…well…his other hand cheated. That dark coding told him that a meaningful rub over Drift’s codpiece might help the speedster make up his mind. Drift arched into the touch, and his optics brightened as though he was surprised by the groan that escaped his vocalizer. His answer came in the form of a frantic nod. He sat up to make the removal easier. 

Satisfied, Ratchet popped the clasps with medical efficiency and set the armour plate aside. He rested his hands where the clasps had been, slowly making his way over the exposed lines and circuitry, so sensitive without their protective covering. Drift whimpered, and squirmed as though by doing so he could speed Ratchet’s attention along. 

“Drift,” Ratchet whispered. “Are you in a hurry?” 

“I’m…I’m a sports car. We’re designed to…mrgh…go fast…” 

Ratchet let his fingertips move lightly over the tip of Drift’s cable. “And I’m a medic and I’m designed to be _thorough_.” 

Drift responded with a keening groan that might have been torment, appreciation, anticipation, or all of the above. Whichever it was, Ratchet made sure to give full attention to the entire length of the cable before exploring further. Ratchet’s finger traced delicate seams, outlining Drift’s valve cover and the spiraling metal plates that protected it as Drift lowered his belly to Ratchet’s. He sought out a particular place…yes. Two sharp taps of his index finger and Drift’s valve cover obligingly snapped open. 

Drift mewled with surprise. Poor kid…he’d obviously thought he’d need to open it himself, and hadn’t anticipated Ratchet’s ability to open it automatically. Ratchet didn’t want to scare him, though, so he guided his left hand to stroke the younger mech’s head finials in a gesture of comfort. Drift quivered for a moment before leaning his head into the touch, accepting. His hands closed over Ratchet’s shoulders as if seeking support. 

When Drift had settled, Ratchet used his right index finger to do a little more exploring. He traced the outside of the valve, right where the plush interior lining formed a lip, noticing that even that gentle pressure met resistance. But Drift jerked his hips anyway, as though determined to force Ratchet’s finger inside, despite the fact that he gritted his teeth in anticipation of pain. Ratchet quickly ran his hand down the speedster’s thigh instead, causing Drift to squirm uselessly. The speedster’s expression was almost a glare. 

“You gonna frag me or what?” 

Drift’s body shied away, even as his words goaded Ratchet on. Ratchet hesitated, confused. 

“Come on,” Deadlock sneered, “stretch me out and jack me up if you think you got the girth to do i…” 

Ratchet shot his left hand up the speedster’s back, firmly palmed the back of his helmet and held him still while he silenced Drift’s mouth with a kiss. 

When Ratchet released him and leaned back, he murmured, “So what’s with the dirty talk? Is that what gets you off?” 

Drift shook his head no, biting at his lower lip, then flickering his optics and groaning in appreciation when Ratchet’s fingers teased down his cable again. 

“I don’t need it either,” Ratchet said slowly, “so why don’t you use that mouth of yours for something else.” 

Drift raised a leering optic ridge. “And what might that be?” he asked, but he was already bowing his head in anticipation of an answer. 

And Ratchet was sorely tempted, but there was a certain delicious satisfaction in putting his hands on Drift’s shoulders to stop him and surprising him with the answer. “You should use it,” he purred, “to tell me what you like.” 

Drift didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue either; he just stared at Ratchet and furrowed his brow in consternation. 

“Now,” Ratchet whispered in Drift’s audio, “why don’t you turn around, and let me sit up.” 

Drift obliged, but he kept looking back over his shoulder, as if he didn’t trust what Ratchet might be doing behind his back, or perhaps he was seeking assurance that he was doing what Ratchet wanted. The befuddled look on his face made it obvious he had no idea what was going on; this encounter wasn’t following any of the scripts in his head, and Ratchet couldn’t hide a little grin at the surprise that Drift was in for. 

Ratchet took hold of Drift’s shoulders to pull himself upwards, and quickly dragged the pillows into position to help support his lower back—he was getting a little too old to do this sort of thing comfortably without a bit of help. He coaxed Drift to lie back, Drift’s spinal strut against Ratchet’s chestplate, and then gently guided Drift’s legs until the knees bent and hooked over Ratchet’s legs. Ratchet let his hands trace a trail from Drift’s knees, over his thighs, and across his abdomen, by which point Drift’s head was lolling back onto Ratchet’s left shoulder as the speedster’s breathing became deep and raspy. 

Ratchet left his left hand splayed across Drift’s belly, his fingers almost touching the base of Drift’s cable, while his right hand fished in his subspace med kit for something he knew he needed. With centuries of operating room experience, he knew that rather than fumble with the cap one handed, it would be faster to simply bring the little tube to his teeth and rip off the lid; he wouldn’t be able to close it again, but he’d probably be using most of the contents anyway. Tube opened, he flipped it in his hand and squeezed a generous helping of the contents into his palm. 

And smooth as he’d been, it hadn’t been smooth enough to keep Drift from noticing, though, granted, a warrior like Drift had made his living—and kept his life—by remaining alert. “What’s that?” he asked warily, his whole body tensing against Ratchet’s. 

“Just a little lubricant, kid.” 

Drift nodded. Dimmed his optics. Gritted his teeth. Braced. 

Ratchet dropped the tube, rubbed his hands together and then gently wrapped his left hand’s moisture-slicked fingers around the very tip of Drift’s cable. 

Drift gasped, eyes flaring with shock. He arched involuntarily, and the motion caused smooth, firm cable to drive deeper into Ratchet’s grip. A groan of pleasure ripped from his throat. 

“Do you like that?” Ratchet inquired. 

Drift moved his hips with surprising delicacy, feeling the cable slide back through that delightful wetness, then forward again, deeper into Ratchet’s hold. Ratchet grinned to himself, making Drift work his way deeper into the medic’s grip. “Ungh,” Drift groaned, “that’s…that’s good…” 

Ratchet went back to lightly tracing the rim of the speedster’s valve, so softly, so carefully, with his right index finger. Drift appeared not to notice; he was too involved with what was happening to his cable. Ratchet grinned and took a moment to appreciate a medic’s ability to work one delicate operation with one hand and a completely different series of movements with the other; surgery was the most practical application, but the ability had other uses which Drift seemed to appreciate, given the absolute symphony of sounds coming out of his mouth: little gasps, throaty mewls, panting, even the occasional word—“yes” and “more” being the most common. 

If Ratchet paid too much attention to those noises, he would definitely start having trouble with his own cable, still restrained under his armour, or with his ability to keep his hands going. Ratchet bit his lip—this would be worth the wait—and concentrated. He ran the pad of his index finger over Drift’s valve and confirmed that he’d successfully lubed all the way around it; then he centered his fingertip on the middle and pressed down carefully. He met resistance, as he expected, and did not force his way any further. Instead, he slid his left hand down the length of Drift’s cable, until it was wrapped around the base, and then he freed his pinky finger just enough to hook down and seek a sensory node that connected …there. He rubbed it and felt the valve relax, just a little, just enough for him to slip his right fingertip over another little node located just inside the forward rim. Quickly he slid his left hand back up Drift’s cable, and Drift bucked into the motion. 

Ratchet knew the exact moment Drift relaxed. The tension in the valve vanished so quickly that Ratchet found himself knuckle-deep inside it. He stroked ever so gently, mixing the lubricant with Drift’s own fluids, caressing the inner lining of the valve. 

Drift tightened on him, experimentally. Ratchet heard the speedster’s intakes hitch. “Hey, are you….” 

Ratchet withdrew, rubbing the valve walls as he did so. “Am I what?” he asked, his voice hoarse. 

“Don’t stop,” Drift pleaded. 

“Hang on, kid.” He fumbled for the mangled tube of lubricant, grabbed it, squeezed it roughly and smeared it down the length of Drift’s cable. He had an ulterior motive, of course, rolling his left index finger in the substance even as his right hand milked Drift’s cable, but this time he made himself wait at the entrance to Drift’s valve. “Can I?” 

“C’mon, Ratch, give it to me,” Drift panted, and though Ratchet worried briefly that Drift was once again taunting pain, he did have Drift’s consent, and he was going to do his best to make this different from Drift’s other experiences. 

He pressed, very carefully, and then he began working his magic with his left hand on Drift’s cable again. Drift groaned and pumped into the milking grip, and each thrust of his hips drove Ratchet’s finger deeper into his valve. It was all Ratchet could do to hold still when he wanted so badly to explore that tight, wet heat; but he needed Drift to do this at his own pace, a pace which felt good. Ratchet hadn’t expected it to take this long; Drift was shuddering with pleasure and Ratchet’s finger was barely two knuckles deep. 

By the Matrix, Drift was _tight,_ worrisomely so, and it made no sense. Ratchet remembered examining him in the Dead End, and the notes he’d made and then tried to forget about. How… 

…Oh, Primus, the _rebuild_. A memory from the medical files jumped to mind: the Circle of Light had given Drift a rebuild. Clearly they hadn’t approved of the condition of his interface equipment, because it had been upgraded and replaced. Ratchet had not guessed that it had gone _unused_ since it was installed. 

“Drift,” Ratchet rasped. 

“Love it,” Drift whispered, his voice hoarse. “How…how does it feel so good?” 

“Drift, do you remember? You’ve had an extensive rebuild.” 

“Yeah, I noticed the different armour….why? Mrgh, don’t stop,” he protested, as Ratchet withdrew his finger again. The speedster’s optics lit. “Please? You want me to beg? I’ll do it, I will,” Drift said, but Ratchet craned his neck to nuzzle the speedster into silence. 

“I think you still have your factory seals.” 

An expression Ratchet could only describe as _Deadlock_ flickered across Drift’s face. “That make you hot, doc?” He flashed a laviscious grin. “That you’d be…ngh…the first to pop my seals?” 

“No,” Ratchet said honestly. “ _You_ make me hot.” 

It was true. He didn’t care how many mechs Drift had been with or what Drift had or hadn’t done with whom. What he cared about was that look in Drift’s optics, that strange fragility wrapped up in sharp edges, and how the white swordsmech trusted Ratchet with his perceived weaknesses. 

“So what’s the problem?” 

“Do you think you’re ready?” 

“I told you, you’re in charge.” 

“Dammit, then how’s this for an order…you _will_ tell me what you want!” 

Drift’s optics locked on Ratchet’s. “You,” he said, as though it were a confession. “I want to know…whether it’s different with you.” 

“All right,” Ratchet said, his voice gravelly as he pressed a kiss to Drift’s neck. “If you’re sure.” 


	7. Desperate Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Does your house have a fire extinguisher?
> 
> You may want to check to see where it is.
> 
> You also might want to have 911 on speed dial. Unless 911 in your area means sexy firetruck and ambulance robots. Then don't.
> 
> All this is by way of saying I'm still kind of wide-eyed at the following chapter and I hope you all enjoy it too.

  


Chapter Seven: Desperate Dreams

_Torn pages, more than a memory pieces of the past_  
 _One vision, your image keeps haunting me, a love too good to last_  
 _Your voice keeps echoing down this wishing well_  
 _Wild hearts on an endless flight, set free in our dreams tonight_

_Two souls drawn to the fire in desperate dreams_  
 _Two hearts lost to desire's desperate schemes…_

\--“Desperate Dreams,” Survivor

  


Drift panted, breathing heavily through his air intakes. He arched his back, pressing his shoulders against Ratchet’s chest. “Dammit, Ratch, it hurts when you stop…please…”

Ratchet brushed his thumb over Drift’s interface cable. The speedster made a sound of relief and pleasure as the tension left his body and he settled back against Ratchet. His relaxation didn’t last—a few movements of Ratchet’s hand had him trembling with pent-up energy, his thighs quivering, seeking release.

“Need some help,” Ratchet gritted. Fishing in subspace for the tube he needed was difficult when his index finger was already slick with lubricant – some from another tube, some from Drift himself—and the hot white speedster writhing against him didn’t help his focus at all. His hand brushed the article he sought and he drew it out, awkwardly pinched between his pinky finger and thumb. “Here, open that.”

Drift’s hands—which had started out clawing into the berth and graduated to denting his own upper chest, as though he needed to hold onto something in order to believe his own hands weren’t responsible for his pleasure—took the tube and practically ripped off the cap, tossing it into the corner of the room with a clatter. Ordinarily Ratchet would be angry about wasting medical supplies, but somehow right now he couldn’t care less. His finger shook as he presented it to Drift. “Just a little, right on the tip.”

“Mrgh.” Drift’s expression was agonized, as though he could barely summon the concentration necessary to follow this simple instruction. He managed to smear a dollop on Ratchet’s finger: off center and in a messy blob, but Primus, good enough. 

“That’ll do,” Ratchet murmured, and Drift sagged with relief, dimming his optics, clearly once again concentrating wholly on the sensations in his cable as Ratchet caressed each sensitive place while Drift pumped his hips. 

Ratchet carefully centered his finger on Drift’s valve, finding the right place, the best angle. “Cold!” Drift squirmed.

“You’re so hot,” Ratchet murmured, “you’ll warm it up in no time.”

“What…what is that…” Drift whispered, even as his back arched in invitation. “Ratchet, my valve…I want…I want you back in there.” His lips trembled. “I don’t know why I want that, but I do.” It sounded like a confession. How strange, for a mech who’d confessed to so much worse during games of Truth or Drink, to be so embarrassed over such a simple act. “I want that so much. I feel…feel empty without you.”

Ratchet smiled and pressed a kiss to Drift’s helm as his right hand returned to Drift’s valve. “Help me out here…I want you to use your fingers to hold your valve open.”

Drift’s responding mew was evidently a sound of agreement, as he hastened to comply. “What are you…what is that?”

“It’s something to help dissolve the seals. I want to make sure this goes where it’s most needed. That’s good….just a little wider? Perfect.”

Drift made an inquisitive sound. “If you do that…they won’t pop.”

“That a kink of yours?”

“No,” Drift panted.

“Me either. Want to know what my kink is? It’s _you having a good time_.” 

Drift keened. Ratchet carefully slid his finger in between Drift’s, up into the open valve, and Drift hit a higher note as the sensations intensified. He released his hand and wrapped it around Ratchet’s leg instead, as though he needed something to hold onto. Ratchet moved deeper into Drift’s valve until he found the resistance he’d felt before; then he stopped pushing, and instead, massaged everywhere he could reach with the tip of his finger. 

Drift’s valve relaxed with stunning swiftness. One moment Ratchet was gently stroking, as though requesting admittance, and the next his finger was fully hilted in Drift’s valve, as the speedster groaned appreciation and his thrusts increased in pace. Ratchet was shocked at how quickly his finger sank back inside, even with all that lubricant. Ratchet held his breath and kept very still as Drift rolled his hips, braced himself on his arms and arched his back, savouring the sensation. “Mmmm, yeah.”

“Like it?”

“Uh-huh.” Drift’s expression of dazed wonder sharpened into all-out need as Ratchet hooked his finger inside, firing off one of Drift’s sensor clusters in a fusillade of pleasure. “Oh, Ratchet….Ratchet, it’s good. Ratchet, it’s good.” Drift repeated himself, as though by hearing the words over and over he might somehow understand _why_ , or perhaps the sensations had short-circuited his voxcoder and all he could do was plead inarticulately for the medic to please continue.

Drift’s chassis threw off wave after wave of heat, his fans roaring, and Ratchet remembered what Drift had said earlier: _it hurts when you stop_. Releasing his milking grip on Drift’s cable now just so they could interface wouldn’t be nice, would it?

“Would you like to overload this way?” Ratchet whispered.

Drift gasped, as though he’d never realized that might be an option. “Can we still ‘face?”

“Would you like that?”

Frantic nodding.

“Then yes, we can. But first, I want to watch you overload.” Ratchet smiled as he gently rubbed his left index finger over the sensitive jack at the tip of Drift’s cable. “Can you do that for me?” He folded his left hand around the end of the cable; gripped and relaxed, gripped and relaxed.

“Mrgh,” Drift said, beyond words, as he thrust into the waiting hand, onto the firm finger. His optics shimmered with light. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged. Ratchet watched him, fascinated, and for once he had no mockery for the look of reverent exultation on Drift’s face. Was this what it looked like, when someone saw divinity?

Ratchet wondered, all of a sudden, if what he called _empathy_ was the same thing as Drift’s _divine grace._

Drift’s frame crackled with excess charge. His movements became more frantic, hungry, almost brutal, and then his back arched and he trembled, suspended between desire and pleasure. Ratchet moved ever so carefully, curving his finger inside Drift’s valve to stroke another sensitive node, and that added input nudged him over the edge. Drift howled, throwing off pulse after pulse of electricity that ripped through Ratchet’s EM field on their way to ground. Ratchet dimmed his optics and held tight as Drift’s body thrashed with the force of his release. 

When Drift stilled at last, Ratchet gently he loosed his hold on Drift’s cable. Slowly, tenderly, he drew his finger partway out of the other mech’s valve—a planned retreat, avoiding additional stimulation when it might cause pain instead of pleasure, while also ensuring that Drift did not feel a sudden loss, a rejection now that his climax had passed. 

Ratchet gently stroked Drift’s cable; the swordsmech purred with sleepy satiation. But when he slid his finger from Drift’s valve, the speedster made a hungry noise and clutched at him. “No, don’t,” Drift begged, “I want it deeper. Please.”

Ratchet slid his finger back in. Drift was definitely turned on now; his valve was juicy and slick, moistened by his own natural lubricant. “Like this?”

“Mrgh.” Drift thrust with his hips, trying to take Ratchet in further. “More.”

“That’s as deep as my finger goes. Here, how about this.” Ratchet released Drift’s cable to reach over and pick up the squashed lubricant tube that still, hopefully, had a little in it. “Help me.” He handed it to Drift. “I’m going to let you go…”

Drift made an unhappy sound.

“Trust me. I’m going to let you go, and you can turn around and take my…” By the Matrix, was he actually saying this? “…armour off, if you like, and use up the rest of that in the tube.”

The white speedster nodded eagerly. Ratchet kissed him tenderly on the side of the jaw and then withdrew. He gritted his teeth as Drift whimpered with the loss, and part of him felt guilty for causing the swordsmech even that much distress, but then Drift had turned around in a flash and grabbed for Ratchet’s armour, grinning that cheeky smile, and Ratchet felt his whole world spin. 

“Present for me?” Drift teased.

Ratchet nodded helplessly.

Drift wasted no time opening the first clasp, but he seemed to struggle with the second and by the time he sloooowly prised up the third, Ratchet was beginning to wriggle and grunt uncomfortably. Drift beamed innocently. “Impatient, Doctor?”

“Hush up and pay attention to what you’re doing,” Ratchet groused, and then he almost bit his tongue, because that sounded just like his old self, cranky and crabbing at Drift on the slightest pretext when what he really meant was _thank you for taking my mind off how lonely I am._

Before he could apologize, Drift had the fourth clasp unhitched. He laid the piece of armour aside, and it slid off the end of the berth with a clatter because Drift wasn’t paying any attention to where he was setting it. His optics were firmly locked on Ratchet’s cable, with an intensity that Ratchet found a little embarrassing.

He was nothing much to look at. Adequate in every way; perfectly functional; nothing special save his hands. Nothing like Drift, who was a tantalizing mixture of smooth curves and sharp angles. Smooth curves, to dare the viewer to chase him, catch him, stroke his aerodynamics; sharp angles to taunt the viewer, to warn whoever looked that this prize carried inherit risk. Drift was desire and danger, pain and pleasure, a double-edged sword. Ratchet was…a box with wheels.

Ratchet was seeking words to apologize when he saw Drift bow his head. The gesture made no sense to Ratchet until he felt those lips whisper across his cable in a kiss.

“Oh…Primus…kid…” Ratchet didn’t believe in a God, but until a second ago he also didn’t believe he could ever be as desirable as Drift suddenly made him feel.

“What do you think?” Drift asked, and _Primus have mercy_ , with each word Ratchet could feel Drift’s hot breath against his cable.

“I think…” It was hard to squeeze the words out from a voxcoder so suddenly filled with static. “I think if you do that, I won’t be able to pleasure you.” He forced himself to swallow. “Not the way you asked me to. If you’d like to, later…”

“Yeah,” Drift said, which apparently meant agreement, because the next thing Ratchet knew, his cable was being gently stroked by lubricant-slick hands. Ratchet gritted his teeth and tried to calm his rapidly pounding fuel pump and his dizzily spinning gyros. This was about Drift…had to be about Drift…

“Careful,” he managed to say. “Remember I haven’t done this in a very long time…and I don’t know how long I can last because you are _so fragging hot_.”

Ratchet bit his lip—he hoped that was an okay thing to say. He’d tried to control his urge to comment on Drift’s appearance, knowing the speedster needed to hear it wasn’t just his body Ratchet was interested in. 

“Your fault,” Drift breathed.

“What?”

“Your fault I’m hot,” the swordsmech elaborated. “When you touch me…when I think about you touching me…my fans go crazy, my coolant boils, my engine starts to redline. I don’t know what you do to me but I _want_ this, I _want_ to ‘face with you…” Drift gasped air into his intakes. “Tell me how you want me. On my back? On my knees?”

“Right up here on my lap.”

Ratchet smiled to see Drift’s surprise. “Really?” he asked, but even as he said it, he was on his hands and knees, positioning himself to straddle Ratchet’s hips.

“Oh, yeah,” Ratchet purred. “Remember my kink? If we’re going to ‘face, I want to watch you having a good time.”

“I...”

“You’re driving, Drift.”

Silently, the white speedster pointed to his own chest. _Me?_

Ratchet answered Drift’s unspoken question. “You know what feels good. You know how much is too much too soon…you know how much isn’t enough.” Ratchet felt his head spinning; this didn’t feel real, and he wanted it to be real, so very much, even though he knew there would be consequences if it turned out he wasn’t dreaming. “You know what you want to do and what you don’t want to do. You can stop any time. You can overload…all you want…” Ratchet was starting to redline himself just thinking about it. He forced himself to breathe deeply and take advantage of his coolant lines. “And I’ll hold on as long as I can.”

“Love you,” Drift said, and before Ratchet could think about what that meant, he felt Drift’s hand on his cable, gently guiding it. The tip of his jack brushed against something wet and yielding, and Ratchet quivered, fisting his hands against his sides. Drift gently tucked the tip of the cable inside his valve opening and moved his hips experimentally.

Ratchet had to fight down a sudden urge to grab the speedster’s hips and pull him down onto his cable, because Ratchet wanted Drift, wanted him so badly. Ratchet fisted his hands until his fingertips dug into his palms, because be damned if he was going to ruin this, but by the Matrix, it was going to be the death of him, watching Drift slip the tip of his cable into his moist and tender valve. Ratchet could just barely feel it, hot and tight and so very wet. His cable twitched and sank deeper, just a little, and dear Primus, how was he ever going to hold out long enough for Drift to take him in completely? Drift groaned in appreciation and lowered himself further. Ratchet’s cable slid deeper in a sweet gliding motion that caused Drift to purr with delight.

Ratchet could barely see Drift’s rapturous smile through vision already starred with static. Oh, _Primus_ , he’d forgotten. Not what it felt like, exactly, but how _good_ it felt…the _quality_ of it. How could he have gone millions of years without this? It was the most delicious feeling in the universe, the sensation of being wrapped inside a sweet, tight valve, and Ratchet groaned loudly as Drift pumped his hips, driving the cable still deeper into that tight snugness. 

An academic voice in the back of his head was informing him that Drift was significantly over-lubricated, that Ratchet would be experiencing much more intense sensations if the kid wasn’t absolutely dripping inside, but Ratchet didn’t care. Drift was…

…Drift was _smiling._

Ratchet watched Drift’s valve swallowed up his cable. He could feel it being rhythmically caressed by Drift’s movements, and every motion drove it just a little deeper inside, stroking sensitive nodes all along the way. It was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen, and as his own pleasure started pounding inside him, he found himself forced to dim his optics.

“Ratch?” Drift asked.

“Can’t watch you right now,” Ratchet panted. “Looking at you…is watching all my fantasies come to life. Everything I’ve dreamed about ever since that night you first came to the med bay…since you asked me to touch you. Can’t take too much of it. So don’t ask me to watch right now. I want…want you to overload first.”

Drift made a sound that seemed a mixture of pleasure and agreement; it was followed by a low moan as something inside him gave and Ratchet sank in all the way, deeper than his finger had been, deep into untouched territory. Drift keened with pleasure and the milking sensation of the valve walls on Ratchet’s cable intensified. Ratchet feared to look as Drift’s fingers raked down his chest, but Primus, he couldn’t not watch this. He brightened his optics and saw Drift encased in a corona of blue electric light as he crackled with pent-up energy, his thighs clamped on either side of Ratchet’s hips, his whole body trembling, Ratchet’s cable buried deep inside him, and then Drift looked down and their optics met.

Drift smiled, and then—watching Ratchet watching him—his overload overcame him.

Drift’s body convulsed with more pleasure than it could handle. His head snapped back, mouth opening on a silent cry, fans straining to cool him. His body rode Ratchet’s cable, every wild thrust driving it deeper, deeper yet, and then…

Ratchet gasped as he felt something click.

 _Oh, forgive me, I didn’t ask._ He’d just assumed Drift had a guard on his port – most mechanisms did. But apparently a port cover had not been on New Crystal City’s list of new equipment.

And when jacks entered ports, data download was the natural and automatic result.

Ratchet hadn’t done this often. Pharma had professed to hate it; he’d never shared his data with Ratchet and had been extremely picky about when Ratchet was allowed to share with him. At the end of the relationship, Ratchet had gotten the distinct impression that medical conferences put Pharma in the mood not because of anything Ratchet did but because he was angling to access Ratchet’s data via interface, when professional knowledge was first and foremost in his data banks. Ratchet had forgotten that data download felt mind-blowingly good.

…which was absolutely no excuse for pushing it on Drift. “Do you want to stop?” he gritted, even though he didn’t want to stop, not _ever_.

Drift, sagging against him, gasping for breath, managed two words. “No. Please.”

Ratchet flung an arm across the speedster’s back and let the download happen, let Drift drink in his data, take from him what he would, even as Drift began moving against him again until the swordsmech’s valve walls once again caressed his cable with smooth, even strokes. The strokes were frustratingly short—being connected at port and jack limited the range of movement—but the feeling of the data flow was so very worth it.

Ratchet wondered what the hell was in the data and prayed it wasn’t that business with Bludgeon. Drift had enough awful experience; Ratchet did not want to add that to the list. Whatever it was, though, Drift didn’t seem too distressed by it. His valve was delectably moist, insinuating that whatever it was, it was turning him on; and then he leaned over and gently kissed Ratchet on the mouth. His hips began to stroke again as the white speedster rallied and found a rhythm again.

It felt so good; Ratchet’s chassis burned with it. His whole body seized and his fuel pump skipped and the pleasure kept ravaging his frame. Ratchet flailed in his memory banks, trying to remember if any mech had ever extinguished his own spark from a surfeit of pleasure.

_But what a way to go…_

“Drift,” Ratchet rasped. “Drift, I can’t hang on any longer.” He struggled to hold himself back, but the energy coursing through his frame would not be restrained. It had been too long; he was too sensitive, too out of practice. The intensity heightened exponentially, until he could barely remember why he was trying to ward off something that felt so incredible. Dimly, he felt Drift’s tongue lapping hungrily at his collar assembly.

Drift. _My cable is hilted all the way in Drift’s port and he feels amazing and he fragging loves every second of it…_

And Ratchet reached up, grabbed Drift’s thighs, running his hands down all those sleek sports car curves and Drift smiled down at him and whispered, “Come on, then” and Ratchet loved him for it and then….

Too much.

Ratchet’s vision exploded in static and his vaunted medic’s control crumbled before the onslaught. Ratchet grabbed Drift’s hips and held on, driving against the speedster as best he could while he uploaded Primus only knows what data into that snug little port up that tight little valve….He wasn’t certain if the roaring in his audios was the fuel in his systems or his own voice or both. He could have sworn his fuel pump stopped as the electric charge gathered itself and jumped from his frame, leaving his body convulsing in its wake. 

Drift rode the charge and from some distant place Ratchet could feel a valve spasm around his cable; then Drift leaned forward, changing the angle of their coupling. His tongue traced a quick, hungry trail over Ratchet’s energon-stained chestplate. Ratchet gasped as Drift overloaded again, sending out a powerful electromagnetic pulse that rippled against the aftershocks in Ratchet’s body.

Ratchet struggled to get his optics online again, rerouting power away from his fans and coolant pumps – those could wait – and finally getting one quick glimpse of Drift’s ecstasy before the speedster’s whole body went slack and he collapsed, utterly spent, on Ratchet’s chest.

Ratchet folded his left arm over Drift’s back and used his right hand to gently stroke Drift’s finials gently. He listened to the thrum of Drift’s fuel pump and how it slowly fell into synch with his own. Drift trembled, wordless, his optics dim, and even as his body temperature normalized, the tremors increased rather than settled. He buried his head in Ratchet’s chestplate, hiding his face. Ratchet felt moisture—Drift’s tongue sponging the dried fuel off his collar assembly, lapping up the mess Deadlock had inflicted with his blades—and then his intakes hitched and he started bawling, burying his face in Ratchet’s neck while the medic held him and stroked him. 

Ratchet didn’t try to halt his tears, didn’t speak, just did his best to help Drift feel secure. He groaned as his cable slid free of Drift’s valve, slid down his thigh; the sensation almost, _almost_ got him cranked up again, but Drift’s whimpering reminded him that he had higher priorities than a second round, no matter what his coding was telling him. 

“Here,” he whispered, “we’ll armour up now, okay?”

Ratchet hated to snap Drift’s armour back into place, but he was certain that being exposed and vulnerable would be upsetting to Drift. Ratchet tucked in the speedster’s cable, curbing his urge to caress it, and fastened the armour that protected delicate equipment from wear and tear. His hands trembled as he put his own armour back on, wishing he could do this more quickly, because Drift was still shaking and weeping next to him, and it felt like far too long before he had the white speedster back in his arms, though it had been almost no time at all. 

Ratchet stroked Drift’s head fins and waited for his partner to settle. Sobbing faded into weeping, and Ratchet felt guilt hard on the heels of his concern; had he pushed Drift too far? The white speedster’s whole frame shook, while Ratchet held him, hoping Drift understood that he was safe here, that he was cared for.

Belatedly, Ratchet realized that Drift—and definitely Deadlock—could probably cope more easily with a beating than with the things Ratchet had done. He almost murmured to Drift to hush, but caught himself just in time. Drift didn’t need to be encouraged to hide his emotions.

“You’re safe,” Ratchet whispered instead. “Let it out—you’re safe.”

Drift shook all the harder, and Ratchet held him close.


	8. Don't Cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic just keeps growing...but here's Chapter 8 at last. Also, YES, I *will* get around to explaining Drift's trigger from "Thunder Road," but I ran out of space here. More detail = more chapters = certain events keep getting pushed later into the story. At least it's bigger?

Chapter Eight: Don’t Cry

_When you’re in need of someone_

_My heart won’t deny you_

_So many seem so lonely_

_With no one left to cry to...  
_

\--Guns ‘n’ Roses, “Don’t Cry (Alternate Lyrics)”

  


At long last Drift quieted and nuzzled into Ratchet’s side. The medic looked up at the ceiling, his attention wandering from the still white form pressed against him to the ramifications of what came next. There were going to be repercussions from what he’d done. Responsibilities that had to be taken. 

Ratchet’s hand traced the end of a finial with tender care. There was no way for him to prepare himself for whatever Drift’s reaction might be – and in the end the choice would be Drift’s. 

After an indeterminable amount of time he felt Drift move; it felt as though the swordsmech was trying to kiss his throat. Ratchet smiled. Drift lifted his face and scrubbed at his optics. “Sorry, Ratch, I…”

“Don’t be.” Ratchet touched his chevron to the swordsmech’s helm. “Don’t you ever be sorry for trusting me.”

Drift’s mouth quirked, though gratitude shone in his optics. “Hey, you do know that was great, right?” He swiped his hand over his cheek again. “I don’t know why I’m all…I shouldn’t be such a mess when…”

“Stop worrying about what you should be,” Ratchet said, his voice low, “and start being who you are.” 

“Yeah.” Drift shifted, wriggling into a position where he could look at Ratchet while still keeping his body nestled up to the medic’s. “About that.” He ran his hand down his chest until his fingers traced the outline of his Autobot badge. “Is this thing real?”

Ratchet bit down on his teeth, wondering what to say. “What do you remember?” he asked cautiously. 

“Um…trying to overthrow Turmoil, messing up, getting myself abandoned…Wing. New Crystal City.” His optics widened. “That whole business about leaving the Decepticons…I did it, didn’t I? Wing talked me into it?”

“I never met Wing,” Ratchet said, but he wondered about those words. _Wing talked me into it_. So similar to _Megatron picked me_ and _Gasket brought us together_. Or _Rodimus is leading us on a quest_. 

“So I don’t think I’m a Decepticon any more. But that doesn’t make me an Autobot. Am I wearing this badge so I could sneak in here with you, or is it real?” His hand closed on Ratchet’s, their fingers lacing together. “Come on, I know you aren’t supposed to tell me, but I can’t wait.”

Ratchet raised an eye ridge.

Drift guessed the question and answered it. “On the street they tell you never to tell a guy on Syk what he’s forgotten. You’re not being straight with me, so I’m guessing there’s a medical reason for it.”

“Context,” Ratchet admitted. “I could tell you a fact, but I couldn’t tell you how you felt about it, or your reasoning for making the decision you did. You’d form an emotional response to the fact without knowing the full story, and later, when you get your memory back, your real, historical thoughts and feelings would be tainted by the later response.”

Drift sighed. “So you’re not going to tell me.” 

“You’ll get your memory back soon,” Ratchet soothed. “There’s only a few years’ worth after New Crystal City.”

Drift’s expression hardened. “Look, I guess the important thing is I’m not a Decepticon any more. I’m not…not _Deadlock_ any more, am I? Autobot or Neutral, we…we could be together, couldn’t we?”

Ratchet thought frantically and found nothing that he could say. The line between Drift and Deadlock was a grey and hazy thing, and Drift’s second question was impossible to answer. 

Drift sat up, clearly disturbed by Ratchet’s reluctance to reply. “If someone caught us here, would either of us end up dead or locked up for it?”

“No.” That much, Ratchet could answer.

He wasn’t prepared for Drift’s scowl to deepen. “So if there’s no reason we can’t do this, _why are we sneaking around?_ Because that’s what you said—we ignore each other except for every once in a while when we do _this_. What’s so wrong with it that you don’t want anyone to know?”

Ratchet grabbed Drift’s shoulders. “Don’t you talk that way. This…whatever we have here…it’s very _new_. We don’t need anyone else’s smart-mouthed commentary on something we’re still figuring out for ourselves.” Ratchet let go of Drift, his hands still shaking. “You have a whole new start ahead of you. I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea that you, I don’t know, _belong to me_ , when you really ought to be…” His voice hitched; he couldn’t help it. 

_Claim him. Take him. You know you want to,_ that dark voice whispered in Ratchet’s brain.

But he was an Autobot. He knew better than to listen to those urges. _Do your job, and give him what he needs, not what you want._

“…taking some time and some space to figure out what you want out of life.” Ratchet hadn’t expected it to hurt so much, to say what needed saying. “I won’t get in the way of you…”

“No.” Drift’s refusal was adamant.

“Drift?”

“No, no, no…..” Drift grabbed at Ratchet, squeezed so hard he hurt. “No, no…”

Ratchet folded his arms around the white speedster. “Kid?”

“Want _you_ ,” Drift gasped, lifting his head to stare Ratchet in the optics. 

“Drift.” Ratchet lifted one arm just enough to stroke the crest on the speedster’s head. “You can do better than me.”

Drift’s expression suggested that the swordsmech was seriously questioning Ratchet’s sanity. “I don’t…”

“Unless we find a body to prove that Pharma is dead, I’m on the roster as already having a conjunx endura. Not free to take another.”

“So? I supposedly belong to Megatron. Forever. I don’t think so.” 

Drift grabbed Ratchet’s hands and pinned them above the medic’s head. He stared Ratchet right in the optics, lip lifted in a growl, but his grip was just as gentle as it was firm—not budging, but not hurting either. Not Deadlock, but rather, some synthesis of the craven bot from Rodion and the fearsome Decepticon warrior.

“I know what I want. I want to be with you. Do you understand that?” His lips ghosted over Ratchet’s cheek. “I’m not letting someone else’s laws keep us apart.” He looked unblinkingly at his lover and said, “If you don’t want me around, you’d better say so, and if you do it _for my own good_ I’m going to be really upset with you.”

Ratchet sighed. “I suppose that Con programming is still not a good reason?”

“Nope.” Drift released his grip on Ratchet’s wrists and nestled in close, as though he belonged there. “You ever figure maybe Bludgeon didn’t change as much as you think he did?”

“What?”

“The sports car thing, yeah, I’ll believe that. The rest, though, I think you just like being in charge.” 

Ratchet stiffened.

“What? Nothing wrong with it. It’s…kind of hot.”

“You are asking for it, kid.”

“Mmmm. When do I get it?”

Ratchet palmed the speedster’s helm and shoved him away. Drift laughed.

The doctor, though, couldn’t help the prickles racing up his spinal strut when he thought of what this development might mean. “I’m going to need some time to wrap my mind around this,” he murmured. “I still think of myself as…if not exactly _celebate_ any more…to come to terms with…” Primus, he felt like a pervert even thinking about the words to say next. He reached up and stroked Drift’s head fins. “Can I ask you something?”

Drift nodded.

“What did you see when we…er…” Ratchet’s clinical detachment had utterly deserted him; or maybe it was simply inappropriate when discussing an encounter so intimate. “When we…”

_When I was jacked in to you._

The white speedster frowned. “Something weird.” He cuddled up close, folding himself and Ratchet in the covers before speaking. “We were somewhere really cold. I…I was really sick. And scared. And there was someone after me.” He shivered. “I asked you to terminate me if they got too close, because I was too sick to fight them. And you said no.” Drift shook his head. “It’s like you said, I don’t know any of the context. My logic centers are telling me I ought to have felt pretty mad at you for letting me down. But when I review those memories I downloaded from you, I feel your emotions…and your memories of your emotions. And those memories said that terminating me would’ve ripped your spark out. When you said _no_ , it wasn’t that you didn’t care…maybe even wasn’t that you wouldn’t have done it…it was that you didn’t want to have to think about needing to do it.”

Ratchet felt his mouth dry even as he held Drift so close. Downloading was dangerous. There was nothing quite so humbling as having another inside your head, in your thoughts. Ratchet nodded, because there was no point in denying it. Drift had experienced Ratchet’s memories as though he’d lived them.

“Hey, uh, I don’t have cybercrosis or something, do I?” Drift squirmed. “I know I used to be a leaker and I looked, um, really awfully sick in those memories.”

“No,” Ratchet murmured, rules be damned. “You’re cured. That sickness is gone.”

Drift vented loudly in relief. “Weird memory…something about me having to have a terminal disease to get you to be nice to me,” he murmured, and nestled close again. “Glad it’s not true.” His optics dimmed, though the smile on his face didn’t waver.

“You grow on me, kid,” Ratchet said, caressing the speedster’s shoulder and listening as Drift’s ventilations slowed to a deep, gentle rhythm. Soon he suspected Drift might be asleep. He was tired, too—the aftereffects of the Syk combined with his first overload with a partner after so many years alone ought to have combined to send him off to recharge, but instead he lay awake, looking at the ceiling and wondering how in the universe he’d ended up here, in a berth in a ship called the _Lost Light_ , in a faraway place where the Great War was over, with Drift of all mechanisms by his side. 

Primus, he remembered the morning after he’d put Drift together for the first time. The speedster—still with a patch on his head where the circuit booster had pierced his helm armour—had sat up in his berth with a throwaway smile and greeted Ratchet with “Morning, Doc. Feel like a frag?”

*

“That won’t be necessary,” Ratchet said, refusing to dignify the comment with optic contact and adding it to the list of Things He Wouldn’t Tell Pharma About. Pharma already disapproved of the Dead End clinic, claiming it was a waste of Ratchet’s time and skills. And Pharma was already jealous and possessive enough; Ratchet didn’t need Pharma making passive-aggressive suggestions that Ratchet kept the Dead End clinic open as a source of willing berthmates. Ratchet wasn’t sure where Pharma had gotten the idea that Ratchet was having a frag on the side, but the jet was remarkably persistent about it, demanding to know where Ratchet was, and who he was with. If word got back to Pharma that Ratchet had received an offer like this, he’d never hear the end of it.

But Drift persisted. “I wasn’t lying when I said my alt mode is my last remaining asset. I’ve got no other way to pay my debt.”

“No debt, kid.” Ratchet tried not to look at how the speedster’s legs were splayed in an unseemly manner across the berth.

“You fixed me for free.”

“I fixed you because it was the right thing to do.”

“You didn’t let Pax toss me in the clink, either. Was that the _right thing to do_?” The speedster sounded as though he were sneering, but when Ratchet glared at him, he thought he glimpsed a shimmer of pain in those insolent optics.

“You’re not going to put your life on track in the clink.”

“You think I’m gonna do it anywhere else?”

“I hope so.”

Drift studied him intently. Ratchet met the kid’s gaze, unflinching.

“I believe you,” Drift said quietly. It sounded like a confession. Then his lips split in an insolent smile. “So, want to frag?”

Ratchet winced. “Would you give that a rest? I’m your doctor. It’s against my ethics to interface with a patient.”

“So write me a clean bill of health and then frag me.”

Ratchet shot the kid a glare. The speedster met his gaze and, though his struts shivered, he returned the look evenly.

“If you’ve got an itch in your valve, I’m sure you can find lots of other mechs who’ll be more than willing to help you out with that.”

“It might be something dangerous. Maybe you should check it.”

“I already did.”

“Yeah, you like what you saw when…wait, what?”

“I said I already did. It’s part of the standard medical exam…” Ratchet felt his hands tremble. It was, indeed, part of the standard medical exam. And it was considered wholly justifiable to conduct the standard exam on an unconscious patient. Ratchet had not been surprised to find signs of heavy use, even abuse, on the young mech’s interface equipment, but treating it and talking about it in this context were two very different things. “…and you’re healthy, but you should be a little gentler with that hardware.” Even as the words came out, Ratchet regretted them. He doubted it was Drift who’d been responsible for the roughness.

Drift’s expression fell. He looked at the berth a moment, chewing his lip, and Ratchet felt that he ought to leave while the leaving was good, but abandoning the patient in a moment of obvious mental turmoil went against his nature. Ratchet stood there, awkwardly, and then Drift spoke.

“Show me.”

Ratchet didn’t know what to say. His mouth worked uselessly.

“I said, show me.” Drift lifted his head. “Please. Or if…if you don’t want to frag me, could you just…just…”

“Just what,” Ratchet asked, knowing he shouldn’t and helpless to stop.

Drift held out his arms by way of response, looking small and lonely and utterly lost.

This was the territory where lines blurred—where the responsibility to maintain professional distance from a patient clashed against the very mortal need of one being for healing contact with another. Ordinarily Ratchet would have said no. But for this one…this one bright spark, this mechanism who sang with vibrant life even here in the gutters— _this special one—_ Ratchet truly believed that it would be wrong to withhold something so simple and so necessary.

And so Ratchet folded Drift in his arms, feeling somewhat awkward to be so close to a patient, particularly one with a past like Drift’s. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected Drift to do, exactly, but as the speedster settled against him, his breathing pattern slowly transitioning from hitching and shuddering to slow and even, Ratchet realized he’d never expected Drift to be satisfied with such a simple thing. 

He hadn’t known how long he’d stood there, but after a time he recognized that Drift was, in fact, asleep. He’d eased the speedster back into the berth and tucked him in, making a point to talk to him more later.

That opportunity had never arisen. Orion Pax and the Matrix heist had taken Ratchet’s attention; and when he’d returned to the clinic, Drift was gone. For a time Ratchet had hoped that the speedster would return—preferably undamaged—and, after a while, he’d allowed himself to believe that Drift had taken his advice, gotten a job, and moved on. 

He’d never even equated the monster Deadlock with Drift until after Drift had rejoined the Autobots. And when he had, he’d felt…Angry. Betrayed. 

Guilty.

He’d let those feelings taint his behaviour towards Drift. 

Ratchet sat awake, thinking of opportunities lost and roads untraveled and questions that would remain forever unanswered. There was no undoing the past. There was only the hope that the mistakes of the past would not be repeated. 


	9. In the Living Lies the Art

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's been enjoying this story. Writing it is a real comfort for me & cheers me up--I hope it can do the same for you.

Chapter Nine: In the Living Lies the Art

_Long ago and far away in a patient yesterday_  
 _Lie the seeds of who we are_  
 _Mystic beauty, hidden scars_  
 _So we end up where we start in a matter of the heart_  
 _In the living lies the art_  
 _It's a matter of the heart_

\--“A Matter of the Heart,” Rawlins Cross

  


Ratchet couldn’t remember how many years of his career had been spent watching patients sleep. Typically, he busied himself with other activities, like reviewing data or cleaning instruments—tasks from which he could look up from time to time to monitor the patients under his care. He had never imagined that he might be fascinated by watching another mech recharge, particularly a mech who wasn’t in any immediate medical distress.

Drift slept curled up against him like a companion animal, his intakes and vents gently inhaling and exhaling in a comfortable, easy rhythm. He had a contented smile on his face that tugged at Ratchet’s spark. It was a beautiful sight: the sleek and restless speedster so peacefully at rest, arms crossed on Ratchet’s chest, sharing his companion’s warmth. 

Ratchet didn’t dare to touch. He was too afraid of waking Drift up. His fuel tanks were leaning towards empty, and his head was a little fuzzy from the aftereffects of the Syk, but he did his best to ignore the discomfort.

Eventually, though, Drift began stirring, driven by the same hunger that Ratchet felt. Drift rolled onto his back, raising his arms over his head, stretching luxuriously. Ratchet watched him roll onto his side, his back arching, revelling in the softness of his berth. The medic’s mouth went bone dry and then started watering uncontrollably.

_Primus, but I’m getting filthy-minded in my old age._

Ratchet tried to shake off those thoughts, but they were more persistent than the slow pounding in his brain or the hollowness in his tanks. It was hard to stop thinking about them now that Ratchet knew exactly how tight Drift’s valve was, and how it felt to sink his cable into the welcoming slick heat…

Drift rolled to his other side, which put him right up against Ratchet. Ratchet winced; he could see the moment when Drift stiffened, recognizing there was someone else in his berth, and brightened his optics to see who it was. Drift’s expression of surprise would have been comical if Ratchet hadn’t been so afraid of what would happen next.

“Oh. Hi,” Drift said with a crooked smile.

“Good morning, Drift,” Ratchet said tentatively.

“Good…Wow, you were here all night?” The smile widened. “Awesome.” Drift started to sit up, then sank back down, pressing his palm to his forehead. His smile faded. “What? I…I don’t feel so great.”

“Are you hungry?” Ratchet’s own tank growled insistently.

“Yeah, but I feel…Ever been needing to refuel and kinda nauseous at the same time?”

“You should try to fuel, Drift.” Ratchet sat up carefully. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll get it out from under the berth.”

“Oh, hey, the stash. You know about th…”

Drift froze. His optics widened as he sat up. “Oh, frag me.”

_Which was an accurate summary, all told…_

“What happened last night?” Drift whispered, his hands growing clammy against Ratchet’s arm.

“What do you remember?” Ratchet asked, keeping his voice carefully professional despite the sensation of his spark chamber climbing into his throat.

Drift brightened. “Seeing you in Swerve’s.” His face darkened. “That stupid question. That _drink_. I…”

His gaze dropped to the newly repaired gashes in Ratchet’s neck cables, and the scratches still engraved in his armour. 

“Oh, no.” Drift cringed. “Oh, Primus, Ratch, I could’ve killed you.” Horror and guilt were written on his face, and Ratchet knew he had to head those feelings off before they cut into Drift’s spark any more deeply than they already had.

“You didn’t.” Ratchet stroked his cheek.

“I’m sorry I….shouldn’t have…”

“Drift. Sssh.” He took Drift’s chin in his hand and kissed Drift to silence him. “We had a few things out between us, that’s all. I’d have had to have come to terms with Deadlock sooner or later; perhaps just as well it’s over with, hm?” 

Drift pulled a deep breath into his intakes, held it a moment, and let it out slowly. “We fragged, didn’t we?”

There it was—the big question. “I’d rather say we made love. Interface was just one part of it.”

Drift glanced away, as if unsure what to make of that. “I don’t feel right.”

“You need some fuel. We both do.” Ratchet watched him, and bit his bottom lip; Drift’s uncertainty was contagious. “Would you rather I leave?”

Drift looked up, optics bright with panic. “No!”

“Would you like me to stay?”

Drift bowed his head, nibbled his lip. “Yes.”

Ratchet didn’t know what to make of the kid. The speedster seemed ambivalent about having Ratchet near, but terrified to lose him. Ratchet didn’t know what was right any more. He dragged the box out from under the berth and held it up, allowing Drift to select a cube.

“…how do you have medical-grade recovery blend in here?”

“It was expiring,” Drift said defensively. “First Aid said I could take it.”

Ratchet picked up a cube of the blend, examining it. “This is good stuff. Probably what we need right now.”

Drift took a cube for himself and drank eagerly, hungrily. Ratchet tried not to pay too much attention to Drift’s lips wrapping around the cube, or the play of his throat cables as he swallowed. 

Ratchet tried not to grimace; he’d always found the stuff too rich, and unpleasantly thick. Drift, however, seemed to actively enjoy it. His optics dimmed with pleasure as he consumed the fluid, and that did nothing for Ratchet’s inappropriate musings. 

“You actually like this stuff?” Ratchet asked, trying to change the track of his thoughts as he chugged his own dose as quickly as possible.

“Yeah.” Drift licked his lips, and Ratchet felt his cable twitch with interest at the sensual sweep of Drift’s tongue. “Ever since…” Drift trailed off. For a moment, they stared at one another; then they spoke, together.

“Rodion.”

Drift looked away. “I still don’t feel right,” he whispered.

“Do you want me to run a diagnostic?” Ratchet asked, hoping Drift would say yes, knowing he wouldn’t, knowing damned well Drift’s problem was due to their ill-advised shenanigans the night before, and feeling damned guilty when Ratchet, at least, should have known better than to fool around with someone when they were both under the influence.

“Yes,” Drift said.

Ratchet’s optics flickered with surprise, but he couldn’t deny the relief as Drift offered his arm. Ratchet flipped open the hatch over Drift’s diagnostic ports, popped the cover that protected his array, and carefully slotted the jacks into the sockets, all the while doing his level best not to think about interface. It took all his professional training, but he managed it somehow.

“You’re running hot,” Ratchet growled, because preliminary reports really did suggest some kind of strain on Drift’s systems. “Few questions. Got a headache?”

“Yes, but it’s pretty minor.”

“Yeah, me too. Guessing this is normal?”

“Yes. And a dry mouth.”

“Same here.” Ratchet suspected the Syk withdrawal was hitting Drift harder than it was hitting him. “Tremors?”

“No.”

So, moderate to mild symptoms, then. “Cravings?”

“Yeah.” Drift sucked air into his vents. “Feels like I’m starving.”

Ratchet eyed the cube. The recovery blend was enough to ensure that Drift’s tanks were full of nutrient-rich energon. This had to be the Syk…but something else wasn’t adding up. The full diagnostic report was coming in, and it was indicating..

“Oh, scrap.”

“What?” Drift was all wide-eyed innocence.

Ratchet shot him a dirty look. “Are you really going to make me say this out loud?”

“Say what?” Drift’s optics took on a hint of panic. “What, I don’t have the Red Rust again, do I? Some awful disease?”

Was it possible that Drift was sincere? He certainly seemed agitated enough. “No,” Ratchet said, “you don’t have a disease.”

“Well then, what is it?” Drift fidgeted. 

Ratchet sighed, then set his jaw and spit it out. “The diagnostics tell me that you’re in a state of heightened arousal.” 

“Oh.” Drift’s expression slackened with relief; then suddenly twisted with embarrassment. “ _Oh_.”

Ratchet bit down just in time to stop himself from demanding how Drift could not _know_ that. There were several possibilities that he could imagine, each worse than the last, and each notion made the medic angrier and very, very defensive. He wanted to drag Drift into his arms and protect him, which was a foolish notion given that Drift was so much better at combat than he was. Instead, he folded his arms, looked away and muttered, “You want me to give you some privacy to deal with it?”

From the corner of his optics he saw Drift bite his lip. “It _hurts_ ,” he whispered. His hand closed over Ratchet’s wrist; Ratchet noted that he’d sloppily left his diagnostics plugs connected, and even now, his heads-up display was helpfully informing him just how hot Drift was running; how much electrical charge was stored up in his systems; the intensity of his fans’ rotation; degree of lubrication in…

_Scrap me._

“Help me,” Drift said, optics pleading.

Ratchet’s hands shook as he disconnected the diagnostics equipment. “Drift, you have two choices,” he said, his voice trembling as he strove for the last vestiges of professionalism. “If that’s a medical request, you can head to repair bay and First Aid can give you something that will…alleviate the symptoms…” Ratchet found it hard to speak when Drift looked at him that way. “Or…Drift, if you want…I can ask Ambulon to take my duty shift and…”

Drift nodded. “Please.”

_Dear Primus._ Was he actually going to do this? And yet, somehow, the next thing Ratchet knew, his arm was looped around Drift’s waist, his comm line to Ambulon was open, and he was in the midst of speaking: “…not feeling too great this morning. Sorry to do this, but do you think you’d mind covering for me today?”

“No problem,” Ambulon replied, “First Aid said it was a really quiet night, other than Whirl being weird.”

“Whirl.”

“Yeah. Hanging around the med bay giggling to himself. I guess he got bored, because he’s gone now.”

_Whirl._

Ratchet was going to have some choice words for Whirl, but not when he had a lapful of purring speedster.

“Er, that’s good. Thanks, Ambulon.” Drift was proving to be a real distraction, the way he wriggled around. “I owe you one. Ratchet out.”

The comm link was barely broken before Drift buried his head in Ratchet’s neck. “Kid, you can’t do that,” Ratchet breathed, “you ruin my focus something terrible.” He ran his hand over streamlined thighs. “Do you know how long it’s been since I last blew off work to…”

“Too long?” Drift asked lightly.

“Probably. And probably when you weren’t even on line yet.”

“Ratch, I’m older than the war. There are a lot of guys on this ship who didn’t come on line until after the war started.” Drift lifted his face, nuzzled Ratchet’s nose with his, and be damned if he wasn’t grinning. “So why do you call me kid?”

Ratchet sighed. “Because I still feel responsible for taking care of you.”

“Ratchet.” Drift sat up, straddling Ratchet’s lap, and put one hand on each side of Ratchet’s face. His expression was suddenly serious. “I’m over four million years old, I’m totally sober and I…” He took a deep breath. “I want you, and _I trust you_.”

And Ratchet, who’d been certain that Drift would say _love_ again, realized that for Drift, _trust_ was a thing rarer than love. 

“It’s me who should be worried,” Drift continued, “because I’ve had a thing for you since before the war, and you, as late as Delphi, still said everyone you cared about was a million miles away from here.”

“That wasn’t true,” Ratchet breathed. “You know what I felt on Delphi. You know that wasn’t true.” His fuel pump was hammering hard at the thought that Drift wasn’t just after a little fun.

Drift murmured, “Last night you told me I could do better. I don’t understand. _You_ could do better. I’m…I’m…broken.”

“Drift, that’s my specialty.” His hands folded around Drift’s. “Take what’s broken, put it back together. Better than before.” He managed a smile. “I’ve got a few cracks myself, kid, you know that now.”

Drift glanced down at the dried energon staining Ratchet’s chestplate. “I hurt you.” 

“And I forgive you.” Ratchet reached up to stroke Drift’s finials. “Do you understand? I forgive you… _everything_.”

“Ratchet,” Drift breathed, his optics wide with wonder. “Ratchet… _please_.”

The speedster couldn’t fully articulate his request, but Ratchet was pretty sure he knew what Drift was asking. The medic caressed his partner’s throat, kneaded his shoulders, slipped his hands across shoulder plates. “What would you like?” he murmured, his voice low. 

Drift just stared at him, incredulous, staggered by possibilities, and Ratchet realized that Drift needed some simpler choices.

“Fast or slow?”

“Slow.”

“Hands or mouth?”

Drift’s optics widened. Ratchet couldn’t help it; he grinned. The swordsmech was working his mouth, but no sound was coming out. “If you don’t pick,” Ratchet teased, “I’m gonna go with _both_.”

Drift still couldn’t speak, but he nodded frantically.

Ratchet smiled as he dipped his mouth to Drift’s throat and his hands to Drift’s back. The speedster melted against him as his fingers sought out those sweet little nodes he’d found that first night on Hedonia. Ratchet gently brushed them to sensitize them as he kissed his way up to Drift’s jaw. “Something familiar, or something new?” he whispered.

Drift’s response was a low whine, a gasp, and finally, words. “What happens…to the choice I don’t pick? Can I…save it for later?”

_Later_. Drift wanted there to be a later, and yes, Ratchet did too. “I’m happy to save it for later,” the medic murmured.

“Familiar now,” Drift panted. “Something new…later.”

Familiar. Ratchet knew exactly what Drift liked, and he was more than happy to indulge his berthmate. Still, as Drift mewled and clung to Ratchet’s shoulders, the medic couldn’t hide a bemused smile. Ratchet would never have imagined that Drift—the Lost Light’s king of Truth-Or-Drink stories guaranteed to shock—would like his loving slow and sweet. 


	10. To the Moon and Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here we go... Enjoy :)

Chapter Ten: To The Moon and Back

  


_Love is like a barren place_

_And reaching out for human faith_

_Is like a journey I just don’t have a map for,_

_So baby’s gonna take a dive and_

_Push the shift to overdrive_

_Send a signal that she’s hanging all her hopes on a star…_

\--“To the Moon and Back,” Savage Garden

  


“There,” Ratchet murmured as he stimulated the sweet spots down Drift’s spinal strut, one after another, top to bottom. “That better?”

Drift caught Ratchet’s lips with his own for a long, probing kiss before he finally answered. “It’s….” Drift panted, “it’s a start.” He reached out and captured Ratchet’s right hand.

“What are you…” But Ratchet didn’t need to finish the sentence, because he’d figured out what Drift was doing. His hand was pressed to the high inside of a hot, moist thigh. Ratchet needed only move his fingers slightly to confirm that somehow Drift had managed to take his armour plating off while Ratchet had been distracted by the kiss.

Ratchet held very still, and Drift made a noise of impatience and shifted his hips, enough to press his valve against the side of Ratchet’s hand. Giving in, Ratchet let his fingers trace the rim of the valve. The very plush, very wet valve. Drift threw back his head and moaned. “Ratchet….please…”

Ratchet’s fans snapped on with a growl. Stroking Drift had been pleasant, but the idea that Drift was this damned wet for _him_ …that was the sort of thought that took Ratchet from kind and tender to firm and assertive, and did he ever want to assert his skills right now. He pressed gently, very gently, but Drift gasped all the same. 

“That’s new equipment,” Ratchet said hoarsely. “It’ll still be tender. It needs time to heal.”

Drift tightened his grip on Ratchet’s shoulders, clinging hard and whimpering. “I can take it, Ratch, I swear…”

“Maybe you can,” Ratchet said gently, patting the valve one last time, “but…” He let his fingers trail forward, over Drift’s cable. “Why don’t we use this instead?” He tenderly curled his hand around the smooth, sleek cord. 

“O-okay.” 

Ratchet hid his private smile. It was hard not to think of Drift as a kid when he stammered like that.

“It feels nice,” he whispered in Drift’s audio as he began to move his hand ever so lightly along the length of the cable. “Do you like this? When I touch you here?”

“Y-yeah.”

“And here?” Ratchet’s finger rubbed the sensitive jack on the tip. Drift arched his back and inhaled sharply; pleasure, or too much stimulation? Ratchet returned to his stroking.

“Oh Primus, do that again.”

Ratchet obliged. So lightly across the jack…

Gasp. Arch. And this time, a name gritted between Drift’s clenched teeth: “Oh…Ratchet…”

_Better than Primus any day._

Ratchet shifted his weight restlessly, becoming acutely aware of more than a little moisture building up in his own armour. Watching Drift writhe on his lap as though he were putting on a private show for Ratchet alone was really starting to spin the medic’s blades. And having his hands full of warm primed cable didn’t help matters any. Ratchet’s own valve was starting to ache and he was pretty sure he had the cure for it thrusting rhythmically against his palms. 

He wanted his armour off— _now_ —but he wasn’t certain enough in their dynamic yet to know if Drift would be comfortable with that. He heard the static in his voice as he warned Drift of his intentions: “Would you mind if I set my armour aside?” The very act of saying it, of having to vocalize everything he wanted to do with the white speedster, spun his fans harder.

Drift cracked a smile. “Hah. Knew you’d change your mind….”

Ratchet’s optics flickered. He hoped the grin on his face wasn’t too…predatory.

“Actually I had plans for this.”

Flick, across the tip of the cable.

Drift’s jaw dropped.

Ratchet wanted to chuckle at his reaction, but he restrained himself and asked carefully, “Do you think you’d like that?”

“I….I….”

Drift really did look spooked, and Ratchet steeled himself to do the right thing and find something else for them to enjoy. “You don’t need to. You can say later. You can say no,” Ratchet soothed, fighting down his own urges to order—or beg—Drift to say yes. 

“I don’t want to say no.” Drift dragged in a shuddering breath. “But I don’t know if I’m going to be any good at…”

Ratchet silenced him with a kiss. “Let me tell you what might happen,” he whispered in Drift’s audio, even as he wrapped his hand around Drift’s cable and began to stroke it. “I could make myself comfortable on this berth and you could kneel between my thighs. I could tuck this tip”—a caress of the tip in question “—into my valve and you could slip right inside.”

Drift groaned.

“I could slip my hands under your shoulder armour and hit those hot spots while we make love.”

The speedster mewed.

“Would you like that to come true?”

“Y-yes!”

“Is there something else you’d like to have happen?”

Drift bit his lower lip. “When…when that part is over…could I lie beside you…and you’d hold me…and kiss me?”

Ratchet smiled indulgently—the kid really was sweet. “Sure.”

“W…when does this start?”

“When you tell me you’re ready.”

Drift kissed Ratchet’s throat, but the slow caress of his lips broke off in a gasp when his cable twitched in Ratchet’s grasp. “I can’t wait, Ratch, I want…what you said…can it be now?”

Ratchet patted Drift’s cable as he released it and carefully untangled himself from the speedster.

Taking off his armour while splayed on his back on a berth with his legs spread was not something Ratchet had pictured himself doing in front of an audience. This was the sort of thing he did in his own bunk, with his door locked and his tarps concealing his body from even his own optics. There was a certain awkwardness in doing it now, a barely constrained urge to ask Drift not to look. In the end, Ratchet settled for dimming his own optics, but eventually he had to light them up again.

When he did, he saw Drift watching with an expression he could only describe as _appreciation._

The kid had options. Lots of mechs turned their heads when he walked by, and surely he had a solid notion of what attractive looked like—Drift could see that in the _mirror_ , for frag’s sake. Ratchet didn’t like thinking that Drift was playing a game, the same game he’d played for Megatron and who knew who else, just pretending he was interested. But Ratchet had seen Drift disarmed, remembered very well that look of wonder, and it was that which he was seeing now on the swordmech’s face, not some preconceived imitation of a laviscious grin.

“C’mere, you,” he said.

Drift advanced on all fours, moving with a slinky grace until he knelt between Ratchet’s legs, his arms on the ambulance’s chestplate. Despite having Ratchet spread out for his pleasure, his gaze remained fixed on the older mech’s optics. He leaned in for a kiss, even as Ratchet slid a hand down the streamlined side, from the shoulder, over the curve of the waist, down the front of the body until he captured Drift’s cable in his hand. 

And then Ratchet made good on his word.

Drift inhaled sharply as he felt the tip of his cable tucked inside a wet and welcoming valve. Ratchet gently released his grip as Drift made his first experimental thrust. He rested his hand on the speedster’s waist, guiding him even as his body acclimatized itself to the unexpected presence in his valve. Ratchet was no innocent, but after millions of years of solitude he was bound to be tight. He thanked a deity he didn’t believe in that his frame hadn’t forgotten how to lubricate in that time.

Drift thrust again, very shallowly, watching for Ratchet’s reaction.

“You can go a little harder, kid. I won’t break that easily,” Ratchet said, hoping to encourage him without spooking him.

Drift rose to the challenge – did he _ever_ – and Ratchet heard a moan of appreciation wrung out of his throat. Primus, how had he ever given _this_ up? He braced both hands on Drift’s shoulder armour, spread his legs as wide as he could and was rewarded by Drift’s cable sinking deep.

Ratchet pressed his head into his berth. Every thrust embedded the white speedster further into his valve, deepening their connection, stroking nodes that had been long since dormant from lack of use and stoking them into brilliant, flaring life. Tingles of pleasure lit up his nerve circuits in a chain reaction of heat and light, sparking off flares of delight in his brain and warming his spark. Drift knelt over him with that expression that Ratchet could only describe as _rapture_ , and, flaky or no, Ratchet suspected from the reflection in Drift’s plates that he didn’t look a hell of a lot different.

“Can I…” Drift’s intakes were labouring from his exertions. “Can I…jack in?”

A loaded question. Drift didn’t have nearly enough pleasant memories. And yet, perversely enough, Ratchet felt that after surviving his experience with Bludgeon, he’d developed the skills to come to terms with whatever data he downloaded from his partner. There was no future in a relationship where mechs kept their true selves hidden.

Yes, Ratchet was strong enough.

“If you’d like,” Ratchet said, then drank in air deeply through intakes straining from the heat of his own systems crackling with electricity and the pulsating waves of Drift’s electromagnetic field.

“Love you, Ratch,” Drift panted, and pressed a little harder, a little deeper.

Ratchet was awed, and humbled, by the swordsmech’s honest affection. It deserved a reply in kind.

Ratchet wrapped a trembling hand around Drift’s wrist. “Love you too, Drift.”

Connection.

Ratchet knew there was a way to gather the incoming data without viewing it; to file it for later perusal. He’d explained to patients how to do so; and yet somehow he could not begin to remember how it was done. His original intention to carefully box away Drift’s shared memories evaporated in smoke as his systems flooded with pleasure and the downloaded memory began to play in his brain as though he himself had experienced it.

…Funny how he had been recalling this scene not so long ago. Except then, he’d been warding off the advances of one of his down-and-out patients at his free clinic in Rodion. This time, he was sitting on the clinic’s berth, his attention focused on the mech who’d saved his life.

The white ambulance was solidly built; strong enough to pick up and carry a speedster like him. His face was firm but kind—this was a mech who believed in rules, but broke them if they failed to serve the people they were intended to help. The doctor was busy, understandably so, but he, Drift, he would kill for another moment of the ambulance’s time.

His fuel tank was full, and yet he still felt as though he were starving.

Words came from his lips, unbidden and out of control. Dimly, in a distant part of himself, Ratchet realized that this was a memory. Nothing he thought now would change the way this scene had played out in the past.

“So, want to frag?” he said.

The doctor raised his optics and frowned disapprovingly. “Would you give that a rest?” He was beautiful, even in his censure. Drift thrilled to realize that even irritating the mech could result in glorious attention.

He’d rather make the ambulance smile, but if he failed, frowns would do.

Frowns wouldn’t last, though, and his best attempt to seduce the doctor fell short. All he got was a description of a medical exam, which had certainly revealed to the white ambulance that he, Drift, was nothing more than a buymech and a skiv. Drift sat there, shamed, as Ratchet lectured him on proper care of his interface equipment. When that roaring hunger reached up to strangle him, Drift played one last desperate card.

“Show me.”

The doctor looked shocked. Drift persisted, driven by desperation. “Or if…if you don’t want to frag me, could you just…just…”

“Just what,” Ratchet asked.

Drift held out his arms by way of response, praying to any God that might be listening to please, if nothing else in Drift’s life, please, just this once…

The ambulance folded his arms around Drift, and Drift’s spark sang with a joy he’d never known. In strangers’ arms he’d guessed at this sensation, pretended he knew what it was to be cared for. It was better now than he’d ever imagined. He buried his face in the medic’s neck and drew in a deep breath that smelled like tenderness and care and hospital.

He would not think, now, on how this moment had no future. There was no future, and no past—just this memory, whole and complete unto itself, wrapping Drift in a world called _happiness_.

*

Ratchet snapped out of the memory by his own body hitting overload, and despite the momentary jarring sensation, overall he wasn’t complaining—not while his brain still held the memory of Drift’s blissful happiness at the same time as his frame reported sizzling pleasure lighting his chassis on fire. Drift continued to move rhythmically, but he’d gasped and his jaw had dropped open again. Ratchet felt his valve spasm and could only imagine how that must feel on Drift’s cable. 

The medic forced himself to pull deep breaths into his intake and brace himself for another round. The moment passed, and soon he felt Drift’s cable stroking smoothly in and out of his valve; the deep connection of the download had to have broken during his overload.

His _first_ overload.

The second wasn’t going to be far away, not if he kept watching the sight of Drift labouring for Ratchet’s pleasure, thrusting between his thighs, his body trembling with exertion and his fans blasting waves of scorching heat over Ratchet’s plating. Drift’s optics were dimmed and his mouth moving in silent cries of delight. He was _beautiful_ , and Ratchet couldn’t help but want to touch. His hands reached up, ran down the swordmech’s forearms—it was as far as he could reach—and slid down to where Drift’s hands clawed into the berth as though they were anchors.

Drift shivered. Writhed. A single moan escaped his lips: “please.” For a second his expression hovered on the edge of pain and pleasure, as though he were desperate for release, but uncertain how to find it. 

Ratchet wanted it too, so very much, but not so badly that he couldn’t think to wrap his hands around Drift’s and squeeze gently, reassuringly.

Drift’s optics illuminated in a flash of light. He looked at Ratchet as though he could see straight through Ratchet’s optics all the way to his spark, and that was nonsense, Ratchet knew it, but he smiled anyway. “Drift.”

And, as though on command, Drift overloaded.

Ratchet forced himself to watch as the third-in-command of the Lost Light choked back a scream as his frame crackled with electric light. His hands grasped Ratchet’s so tightly that it ought to have hurt, _did_ hurt in a way, but in another way that pressure was the last bit of sensation required to tip Ratchet over the edge, and in the next instant they were trading powerful bursts of electrical charge, arching back and forth between them. It went on long enough for Ratchet to marvel at the flashes like ground lightning running down the frame of the berth and onto the floor; long enough for him to wonder at Drift’s expression, which was neither self-satisfied grin nor timid acceptance but a beatific expression of perfect serenity and utter peace.

Which lasted only until the final aftershock shuddered through Drift’s chassis.

That was when he disconnected, scrambling back, leaving Ratchet suddenly startled out of a post-interface contented haze as cold air intruded where Drift’s warm frame had been the instant before. Drift knelt on the edge of the berth, looking confused, almost alarmed. For a moment, Ratchet didn’t know what to say. But when he saw Drift look over his shoulder at the door – as though he’d forgotten that this wasn’t his own hab suite – Ratchet knew he had to act fast.

“Hey,” he said gently, “c’mere.” Ratchet spread his arms in silent invitation, knowing he could never just reach up and grab Drift and pull him to his chest. Drift had to come of his own free will.

After an agonizing moment of hesitance—and another quick glance at the door—Drift complied. He lay his chassis against Ratchet’s and let the medic fold his arms around his back.

Ratchet kissed him tenderly on the mouth.

Drift was still only a moment more, and then he returned the kiss, deeply, passionately. Ratchet’s world collapsed into a singularity consisting only of the warmth of Drift’s exhaust, the sweet-tasting sweep of his tongue against Ratchet’s, and the soft touch of Drift’s lips. Ratchet had no idea how long they kissed, only that when his intakes began aching for fresh air, he reluctantly drew away. His frame had developed a bit of a shake, he realized, and Drift was no better off.

Ratchet settled himself in a position where he could get a bit more fresh air and still trace a line of kisses over Drift’s jaw. “I’m so glad,” he murmured in Drift’s audio, “that you came to see me that night when we were in orbit around Hedonia.” His hands gently stroked Drift’s shoulders in a way he knew the speedster liked; he felt Drift’s whole frame purr in appreciation. “I would never have guessed that you would be so sweet.”

“Any good?” Drift managed to say through a processor still burdened with static.

Ratchet tried not to laugh, knowing Drift would misunderstand. “Oh, yes,” he murmured instead, keeping his voice low.

Drift’s whole body melted against him. Ratchet marvelled that the speedster hadn’t bolted for his armour yet. His components were so warm, so nice, against Ratchet’s. 

“Mmm,” Ratchet purred. “So sweet.”


	11. Years From Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is. Chapter 11 of an 11 part story.
> 
> Don't worry, though. There's going to be more stories in the series :)
> 
> In the meantime, though, specific warnings for this chapter are challenging for me due to lack of human equivalents. Bloodplay, maybe? Syphoning perhaps? I'm not sure how to tag this.
> 
> ...Robots doing kinky stuff. How's that?
> 
> Also, hand kink and crazy amounts of fluff.

Chapter 11: Years From Now

_And I just want to hold you closer than I've ever held anyone before_  
 _You say you've been twice a wife and you're through with life_  
 _Ah, but Honey, what the hell's it for?_  
 _After twenty-three years you'd think I could find_  
 _A way to let you know somehow_  
 _That I want to see your smiling face forty-five years from now._

\--Stan Rogers, “Forty-Five Years”

  


If you were going to skip work to fool around in another mech’s berth, you had better _do it properly._

Or maybe it was just that after millions of years of solitude, Ratchet wanted to take the time to appreciate the experience. Perhaps millions of years of solitude took time to burn off. Perhaps… Who was he kidding? Ratchet had never actually thought he’d get an armful of revved-up speedster, so now that he had it, he was reluctant to let it go.

Drift didn’t seem to be in any hurry to kick him out, either. The Lost Light’s third-in-command lay against Ratchet’s right side, venting hot as he drew his tongue over Ratchet’s chest in long, luxurious strokes. 

It was a strange kind of sensation, and at first it had startled Ratchet that Drift would want to do a thing like that. Ratchet certainly couldn’t imagine Pharma lapping his chest like some sort of animal. But to say that Drift wasn’t Pharma was probably the understatement of the century, and it really wasn’t unpleasant to feel such a delicate kind of touch—particularly not when Ratchet considered where else Drift might decide to taste.

There was no hurry, though. Ratchet’s air intakes were still cycling a little faster than normal. He could feel the vibrations of Drift’s engine against his side and guessed the speedster’s engine was running a bit fast too. It would take some time for them both to recover from…the morning’s activities, and what better way to do it than a lazy day in the berth? 

Ratchet glanced down and realized that Drift was well on the way to cleaning off the fuel that had spilled when Deadlock had threatened him with the swords. Ratchet shifted, trying to guide Drift’s attention to his shoulder, away from the dried energon, but Drift whimpered and cuddled closer, and finally Ratchet gave up. 

Ratchet let his hand trace the detail of Drift’s shoulder armour while his mind drifted in and out of—not recharge exactly, but a dreamy, relaxed state in which he could let go of the burden of being Chief Medical Officer for just a little while, and concentrate instead on how warm Drift’s body felt against his, or how soft Drift’s tongue felt as the speedster laved Ratchet’s neck. The swordmech had a hand splayed across Ratchet’s body, stroking the enamel of his finish, and Ratchet covered that hand with one of his own while he dozed.

Ratchet was startled, then, when Drift’s hand abruptly formed a claw, pressing urgently into the medic’s chest. As alertness returned, Ratchet noticed Drift’s fans whining a shrill note, and the speedster was running so damned hot that Ratchet’s whole side was blazing. 

What was happening? Ratchet could not imagine what medical reason would cause these symptoms. What could have done this to Drift while Ratchet had been on the verge of recharge?

Ratchet tried to sit up, but Drift whined and grabbed at him, pinning him down. He didn’t stop licking, either; if anything, he grew even more voracious, focusing his attention on Ratchet’s neck. His spinal strut arched and Ratchet gasped as he felt the electric tingle of overload jump from Drift’s frame and skitter across his, while the white speedster’s body spasmed with ecstasy. Drift gritted his teeth, as if the sensations tearing through him were as much pain as pleasure, and his hands dug into Ratchet’s frame hard enough to dent.

“Drift?” Ratchet said.

Drift gasped, the tremors past, and then his optics focused on Ratchet.

He shoved away, scrambling to his feet. Drift fished on the floor for his armour and hurriedly snapped it into place. “I, uh, sorry, I…I gotta go deal with Whirl, you know, last night was way over the line.” Even as he spoke, he was heading for the door of the hab suite, and Ratchet suddenly knew that if he let Drift leave, he’d never get him back.

Ratchet’s hydraulics throbbed in protest when he pushed himself up from his comfortable spot on the berth, snagged his armour and fumbled with it while sprinting after Drift. He caught the swordsmech just as Drift had palmed open the door of his hab suite. His grip on Drift’s shoulder was gentle, but firm; Drift didn’t resist as he turned the white speedster around. “Drift, look at me.”

Drift lifted his face, but his optics remained firmly on the floor. He shrugged out of Ratchet’s grip. “I gotta go,” he repeated, his expression blank, as though he were shutting down his emotional centers completely.

Ratchet had one last card to play.

Little red flags in his processor nagged him about medical ethics—unsafe practices, psychological factors, _doctors involved with their patients_ —but Ratchet ignored them. His scalpel attachment slid from his right wrist, its blade cool against the fuel line lines in his left wrist. He looked Drift in the optics. “Isn’t it better fresh?”

Drift stared. Ratchet kept his gaze fixed on the swordsmech, and made the cut without looking. His blade was too sharp for him to feel the initial incision, but the moist spill of energon over his hand told him he’d sliced clean. His own internal diagnostics popped up reports of the cut as he folded his scalpel away.

The white speedster lifted his gaze form the wound to Ratchet’s optics, and though he said nothing, the look of naked desire on his face was answer enough.

“Come on, then,” Ratchet said, knowing he’d won as he turned and headed towards the berth, cupping his fingers to stop the energon from dripping down onto the floor.

Ratchet had barely seated himself in the middle of the berth when Drift was at his side, so fast, so quiet and so very hungry. Drift crouched on the berth, his head a hand’s span from where Ratchet’s wrist rested near his lap. The speedster hesitated, looking up at Ratchet, his optics wide with disbelief, his gaze asking permission even as his tongue licked at his lips.

“Go ahead,” Ratchet said gently.

Drift shivered. Then he lowered his lips to the cut and carefully sucked.

Ratchet had to admit to a moment of apprehension. The sensation of energon being pulled from his lines felt a bit uncomfortable, not to mention his medical training insisting that this was wrong. Drift’s loudly purring engine provided a convincing counterargument, though, and when Ratchet let his right hand trace the speedster’s spinal strut, Drift surrendered completely. Sprawled across Ratchet’s lap, optics dim, he let Ratchet’s energon trickle into his mouth while the medic caressed the sleek planes of his back. He shivered as another overload tore through his frame, and lifted his lips from Ratchet’s lines long enough to groan in insensate pleasure.

Ratchet couldn’t let Drift drink for long, but of course it wouldn’t take long—not when Ratchet already knew where Drift’s sweet spots were. The medic zeroed in on the tender wire beneath Drift’s armour, and moments later the speedster started to squirm, his body tightening up, his mouth drawing deeper now, until one last touch to his belly sent a powerful climax tearing through him. Drift lifted his head to cry out, and Ratchet noticed that even as Drift’s body shook with delight, the speedster’s left hand pinched Ratchet’s fuel line shut, holding it closed until Ratchet’s nanites could repair the scalpel’s slice.

What had they said on the streets of Rodion? _Dirty, dirty syphonists?_ And of course there were the rumours of mechs living in the undercity who’d become dedicated cannibals, living entirely on the fuel they stole from others’ tanks. Ratchet remembered, though, patients in his clinic insisting the act was a show of trust between mechs on the street – _I put my life in your hands –_ and Rung would probably have something to say about the psychological implications of feeding your friends from your own body, and the meaning of that gesture to those who lived a lifestyle fraught with hunger. Those psychological implications had clearly taken another unique turn with Drift, given the way a simple taste of fuel could make him overload.

Ratchet smiled, satisfied. He had Drift well in hand now and…

…oh, by the Matrix.

Drift was cleaning up the fuel that had spilled down Ratchet’s hand during his walk to the berth. With his _tongue_. On Ratchet’s _hand_.

Ratchet’s very, very sensitive medic’s hands.

The medic opened his mouth to ask Drift to be gentle there and only a moan came out.

Drift grinned, and asked – with Ratchet’s fingertip still trapped between his lips – “You get off on this too?”

Ratchet realized, distantly, that he was talking about the syphoning. 

The doctor had to draw deep breaths into his intakes to get his voice steady enough to reply. “S’th’ hands…medic…”

Drift drew back. “Too much?”

Ratchet hissed, and before he could stop himself, mewled, “Don’t stop.”

Drift took Ratchet’s index finger back in his mouth and Ratchet sighed contentedly. “Siphoning doesn’t do anything for me, but it obviously does for you and I can do it safely—clean scalpels, close monitoring that I don’t lose too much fuel, that sort of thing—so I don’t mind if you want that now and then.”

Drift whimpered. The sound barely came out through Drift’s lips, which were wrapped around the base of Ratchet’s finger.

Ratchet groaned appreciatively and stroked Drift’s side with his free hand. “This…this does it for me very nicely…” He felt his whole body growing pliable, submitting to the pleasure. Drift released the finger and swirled his tongue on Ratchet’s palm, lapping up spilled energon. “If I turned up the sensitivity on my hands, you could probably reset my whole processor just by doing that.”

And Drift smiled up at him with a predatory expression that Ratchet could only describe as _Deadlock_. “Do it,” he purred, his voice rich and dark, his optics glinting, his taunt promising to fulfill Ratchet’s private fantasies.

He shouldn’t. This was unprofessional and abuse of medical equipment and…

…and something he wanted oh, so very much.

“Ratchet. Let’s indulge ourselves together.” Drift’s hand closed on Ratchet’s thigh, and though Drift lay across Ratchet’s lap, Ratchet had the distinct sense of being pulled under, down into a decadent and sinful world hidden out of sight from the great and the good.

Those dark desires forcibly programmed into his brain module whispered their own siren song, and for once Ratchet realized that instead of fighting them—instead of feeling isolated and stained and damaged by what Bludgeon had done to him—instead, perhaps he ought to consider that in a safe, sane, consenting relationship there was no reason why _not_ to embrace those aspects of his identity.

No reason not to let go.

“Let me lay down,” Ratchet said, his voice gravelly, and moments later they’d shifted, Ratchet’s head on the pillow, Drift’s against his chest, Ratchet’s left arm in Drift’s hands. Ratchet adjusted the sensors on his hands as high as they would go. “There.”

Drift licked Ratchet’s palm experimentally, and Ratchet felt the universe spin.

“Delicious,” Drift said, and slid two of Ratchet’s fingers into his mouth and started to suckle, and in short order, for the both of them, everything else lost all meaning.

* 

Ratchet was far, far too old for this sort of nonsense.

He’d lost count of the number of times he’d overloaded, and that was _before_ Drift had declared his left hand thoroughly clean and promptly started work on the right. Ratchet, who’d only just begun to develop a tolerance to the sensation, found himself right back at square one. Drift hadn’t even asked for any more siphoning—which would have been a bad idea, given the strains Ratchet had already put on his systems since he’d first consumed Whirl’s Drink of Doom—but Ratchet would have considered it anyway just to get Drift to keep going.

Except Drift hadn’t needed any extra incentive.

Ratchet wasn’t sure if he’d entered recharge while Drift was servicing him, or if one of his overloads had actually knocked him unconscious, but whichever it had been, his systems were thoroughly worn out. He felt lethargic, and a little confused. Right now, for example, he wasn’t certain if Drift was teasing him or had actually fallen into recharge with his lips wrapped around Ratchet’s left pinky finger.

Ratchet carefully eased the finger out of Drift’s mouth, groaning as he did so. Even with his sensitivity back to normal, it felt— _intriguing_. Ratchet still felt an urge to explore, despite how fatigued he was from the activities of the previous hours. He reminded himself he could— _would_ , if Drift was willing—some later time, when they weren’t both so spent.

Besides, Drift was sleeping.

The white speedster curled against Ratchet’s side. His breath cycled rhythmically in and out of his vents, and he had a soft smile on his lips. Ratchet had seen that face in a mask of tranquility (usually while talking about auras and premonitions), a manic grin, and worst of all, the cold, grim visage of battle. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Drift like this before.

He looked happy, and somehow, impossibly young.

Ratchet took a deep breath, wrapped his arm over Drift’s midsection, and let his thoughts turn over in his mind. There’d be no going back from this, not now, and if he were smart, he’d sort out how he’d gone from _permanently alone_ to half of a pair, particularly a pair with Drift. He was old; he was supposed to be experienced, but nothing in his experience seemed to be helpful now. This wasn’t a casual fling like the wild encounters of his long-ago youth; and he realized with some surprise that he didn’t want it to be. 

Ratchet caressed a white finial with a fondness that surprised him. He knew the moment Drift awoke. The speedster’s frame tensed ever so slightly when he realized he wasn’t alone in the berth; then his head bowed even as his optics brightened just enough to take a peek to see who he was lying with. Ratchet smiled at him, and the smile widened as he watched Drift’s optics flare in surprise. The swordsmech’s jaw dropped. “You…me…”

Ratchet nodded.

“No _way_ ,” Drift said, and a big stupid self-satisfied grin spread across his lips.

“Next time,” Ratchet grumbled, “let’s not be baked out of our minds on Syk before we talk to each other.”

Drift’s grin slipped, and Ratchet immediately regretted his words. “Oh yeah. Whirl.” He checked his chronometer. “I, er, I’m supposed to be on duty soon.” He looked up at Ratchet as though seeking approval. “Unless you want me to beg off…?”

Ratchet _did_ , but he knew it was a bad idea. They had to come out sometime, and truth be told, his systems needed some more time to recover. He pulled Drift closer and whispered, “Save it…for some time we _really_ need it.” He rubbed the speedster’s curvy thigh, hoping to reassure Drift with his touch that it was responsibility, not lack of desire, that made him choose this option. “You’ll know when that is.”

“Okay,” Drift said, and disentangled himself, somewhat reluctantly, from Ratchet. He climbed to his feet, looking awkward and unsure, and Ratchet realized that Drift was probably new to the idea of being the one to leave someone else behind in a berth.

As Drift headed to the door, a second, darker revelation rose into his thoughts. “Hey,” Ratchet said softly. “Are you going to remember this later?”

Drift’s lips tugged into a smile, but his optics betrayed confusion. “There wasn’t that much Syk in Whirl’s drink, Ratch.”

Ratchet scowled. “I’m not talking about Syk. I’m talking about _you_ , and the way you’ll put your absolute faith in…in visions, in phantoms, but disbelieve something that’s right in front of you.”

Drift bit his lower lip.

“When you don’t have me right here to remind you that I actually do give a damn what happens to you, what kind of stories are you going to tell yourself about what we did? Are you going to wake up tomorrow and take a few seconds to figure out if it really happened or if it was all a dream?”

The speedster’s shoulder’s sagged in silent admission.

“If I had my way I’d…I don’t know, write it right on you or…or _something_ to prove it’s real and it’s not going away.”

“Do it,” Drift said, a hungry light in his optics, and Ratchet felt a shiver down his spinal strut, remembering Drift saying those same words last night.

Oh, but he couldn’t, really. It was a fantasy, nothing more. Drift couldn’t actually go walking around the Lost Light with _Property of the Chief Medical Officer_ inscribed on his pelvic armour.

But…

“Come here, lie down, and open your diagnostic hatch,” Ratchet huffed as he swung his legs to the floor, “and promise me you won’t tell First Aid about gratuitous abuse of medical equipment.” He eased himself towards the foot of the berth, feeling his joints aching from last night’s vigorous workout, and felt his systems pulse with a bit of embarrassment.

Drift looked intrigued as he followed Ratchet’s orders. He examined Ratchet’s position on the berth; the CMO patted his lap, and Drift draped himself with his shoulder over Ratchet’s knees, his left arm up. He popped open his diagnostic panel, baring the row of cylindrical medical-information ports.

Ratchet activated his laser scalpel attachment, but then hesitated. “Are you sure about this?” he asked gently as he took hold of Drift’s arm and gently rotated it until the angle was right.

Drift nodded.

“Numb your sensors to the area,” Ratchet said kindly, just before he moved the laser in single straight line down the interior of the hatch cover. The cut produced a clear, crisp engraving, beautiful work, but Ratchet frowned as he felt a tremor in Drift’s frame. “I said numb your sensors,” he growled.

“Don’t want to,” Drift gritted.

Ratchet’s optics widened. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t _like_ to hurt you.”

“And I love that, but on the streets these marks mean nothing if you don’t feel them.” He looked up, his optics pleading. “So do it.”

Ratchet sighed. The idea was stupid – needless pain – but respect was a crucial part of any relationship and the engraving wasn’t dangerous, just a little sore during the process. If Drift wanted to feel it happen, Ratchet wasn’t going to argue.

He lowered the scalpel again.

“There,” Ratchet said at last, taking a moment to admire his work as he retracted his scalpel. “Sit up… _slowly_ …and take a look at that.”

Drift did, and tilted his arm, and Ratchet watched the light gleam on the angled facets of the word he’d engraved: 

_Forgiven_

“There,” Ratchet huffed, “and I don’t want any nonsense about you thinking this was because we were high or lonely or bored or anything like that.”

Drift kept tilting his arm, watching the shiny reflection travel up and down the Cybertronian characters, for so long Ratchet began to wonder if he’d entered one of those trances he was always going on about – but then he turned his attention to Ratchet instead.

“I love you,” Drift said, his words hesitant, his body taut and trembling.

Ratchet pulled him into his arms and murmured into his audio, “I trust you.”

Drift hugged him, tightly, fiercely, and then his comm went off with a loud and jarring series of beeps.

“Frag, that’s Ultra Magnus,” Drift said. “I really…I really gotta go.” His gaze searched Ratchet’s face, as if seeking permission or perhaps just acknowledgement that leaving would be okay.

Ratchet kissed him, just on the cheek – because he didn’t trust himself near Drift’s lips, oh no, Ultra Magnus might be waiting a long time if he tried to kiss Drift there. Then he clapped the third-in-command on the shoulder. “Message me later, and we’ll figure out when our schedules overlap again.”

Drift grinned. “I think I can do that.”

“Oh,” Ratchet said, as though as an afterthought. “Leave Whirl to me.”

*

Drift was on duty, but Ratchet wasn’t – not yet. It gave him some time to do something that needed to be done.

Ratchet banged with his fist, just once, on the door of Whirl’s hab suite.

“Come in,” came a silky voice from inside, a voice which rang with unspoken menace and just a slight suggestion of disconnection with reality.

Ratchet palmed the door switch. It was, as Whirl had suggested, unlocked. The door slid back, revealing Whirl himself, his back to the door, facing the far wall of his hab suite. Ratchet stepped inside the threshold, feeling the slightest tinge of uncertainty. There really was no telling what Whirl would do. Perhaps he should have let Ultra Magnus handle this. Or at least let someone, anyone, know where he was going. There was no question; he couldn’t take Whirl in a fight.

Ridiculous. A Chief Medical Officer showed no fear.

“Have a headache, do we?” Whirl purred. His claws stroked something that Ratchet realized were his own gun ports. “And did you happen to bring a sword to a gunfight?”

Ratchet smirked.

Whirl thought he was Drift.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Ratchet said dryly, “but Drift’s not here.” He moved across the room, his confidence restored.

Whirl spun around, and it was truly incredible how much emotion could be conveyed in a single optic.

“Who is here,” Ratchet said, getting right up in what passed for Whirl’s face, “is the mech who’s usually putting you back together, currently wondering why his head hurts so much and not liking the answer.” The white ambulance folded his arms.

Whirl tried to step back, but ended up bumping into the wall instead.

“I want it gone, Whirl. Out the airlock, off this ship. Now.”

Before Drift started craving Syk and came here looking for it. Before Drift gave Whirl the fight he was so clearly spoiling for.

“I, er, don’t know what you mean,” Whirl hedged.

“I don’t have time for this,” Ratchet grumbled, and raised his voice. “The Syk. Give it to me, right now.” He held out his hand.

Whirl glared at him.

Ratchet didn’t move.

Whirl’s fans cycled faster, and either it was in preparation for a fight or else Whirl got off on confrontation. Ratchet didn’t want to consider either possibility. “Right now, or I think twice next time you come in all shot to ribbons.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

“You’re a medic. You took an oath.”

“And four million years of war have done scrap all for my tolerance.” He thrust his hand forward.

Whirl sighed dramatically. “Fine.” The ex-Wrecker fished a claw under his berth and came up holding a plastic bag of sparkling magenta powder. He dropped it into Ratchet’s palm. “Happy?”

“One more thing,” Ratchet said, as he curled his fingers around the bag. “If you mess with Drift again, I will cut you up in little pieces and toss you out the airlock _personally_.”

“Oooo, threats, Doctor?” Whirl tried to act taunting, but Ratchet could tell the other mech was shaken. Whirl had probably never seen him like this before. Ratchet had rarely even _felt_ like this before, but the idea of someone thinking it was funny to prank Drift of all mechanisms into doing Syk made Ratchet feel…

…well, it made him feel distinctly un-Autobot, and for once he was just fine with that.

“Promises,” Ratchet said, before turning on his heel. “Next time you’re bored, why don’t you see if Cyclonus wants to play.”

Ratchet walked out, letting the door shut behind him, leaving Whirl all alone in his hab suite with his sick little games and his twisted desires. Ratchet felt as though he probably ought to regret setting Whirl on Cyclonus, but somehow he didn’t. An Autobot sociopath and a “not-quite-a” Decepticon. They deserved each other.

And that thought led to a second and very different notion, and it brought a small smile to his lips.

 _It was funny, sometimes_ , Ratchet thought, _what mechanisms ended up deserving one another._

His attitude towards Whirl wasn’t entirely nice, but just this once, Ratchet thought, just this once, he could be forgiven.

_fin_


End file.
